Canada Post wins legal battle over super mail boxes
Ontario Superior Court Justice Alan Whitten has declared that the City of Hamilton’s bylaw which sought to regulate the placement of Canada Post’s community mailboxes is “inapplicable and inoperative”. As previously reported, the City of Hamilton was trying to stymie Canada Post’s plans to replace door-to-door deliveries in the municipality with the more cost-effective, but generally unpopular mailbox solution.
In a judgement released yesterday (Thursday, 11 June), Justice Whitten ruled that Canada Post is entitled to make decisions which have a direct bearing on its financial viability and it should be able to do so “untrammelled as it were by interference from those who do not share their power nor jurisdiction in such specific areas of competence.”
Canada Post released an official statement yesterday, saying it was “pleased that the corporation’s legal authority to install community mailboxes on municipally-owned property has been upheld”.
The statement continued: “This is a long-standing authority, but not one we take for granted. Our approach in every community is to work collaboratively with the municipality and the homeowners to find suitable locations.
“While the City of Hamilton declined to participate fully in our process over the last year, we received a great deal of feedback by surveying and talking face-to-face with homeowners about potential sites. The discussions held by knocking on over 2,000 doors were respectful and incredibly helpful, leading to changes to roughly 30% of the initial community mailbox sites. Installation work will be completed soon, with conversion for the 36,000 households occurring this summer.
“Canada Post continues to take action to preserve the postal system for all Canadians in light of the steep, ongoing decline in mail.”
The City of Hamilton said that it was “reviewing the decision with a constitutional specialist” and its lawyers will report to the city’s general issues committee on Wednesday next week (17 June).
