Cost of maintaining rural mail service questioned
Lorelei Beal says it’s “ridiculous” that Canada Post plans to fork over more than CD500 million to maintain rural mail delivery across the country.
The Conservative government ordered the post office late last year to continue rural roadside delivery amid concerns about the safety of mail carriers on busy rural roads.
Beal, who lives on Highway 7 between Guelph and Rockwood, said postal workers haven’t expressed any safety concerns about door-to-door mail delivery for years.
“How come it’s been done for years and years and now it’s become such a big issue? We always had rural mail and there was never a question.”
She is one of the rural residents who’s still getting mail delivered to her mailbox. Not all residents have been so lucky.
Some Puslinch Township residents were irked last year when they were told they wouldn’t get their mail delivered to the end of their laneway anymore, but instead had to pick up letters at a communal super-mailbox.
Postal workers have expressed concerns about the risk to rural carriers who deliver mail to roadside boxes.
There were about a dozen accidents last year, including two fatalities. Carriers are also worried about repetitive strain injury from leaning out vehicle windows to deliver the mail.
Canada Post spokesperson John Caines said this week it will cost CD153 million over the next two years to implement their rural delivery plan.
However, Canada Post expects to spend more than CD500 million over five years to ensure rural residents are receiving their mail, he said.
Caines said staff have to be hired to assess 843,000 rural customers in five years, which explains the huge cost.
He said Canada Post expects within the next 18 months to examine whether service to 5,500 rural mailboxes should be restored.
Caines said a traffic safety assessment plan will be developed that measures traffic volume, visibility and stopping distances.
“The landscape of rural roads has changed dramatically over the years,” Caines said, adding the roads have become busier and speed limits have increased.
Wellington-Halton Hills MP Michael Chong isn’t certain what Canada Post’s solution will entail, but said rural Canadians expect home delivery.
Canada Post has been given a monopoly on mail delivery and in return residents should expect to get their mail, Chong said.
“It’s probably cheaper to deliver to an apartment complex in Guelph . . . but it doesn’t mean that we don’t deliver mail to single, detached homes,” he said. The Tory MP said Canada Post needs to think innovatively on how to protect rural delivery, while at the same time addressing safety concerns by their employees.
“There are things that are basic to civilization,” he said.
“One of those is to deliver messages from point A to point B.”
