Author: Archive

Canadians can expect a lot more unwanted advertising in their mailboxes as Canada Post cracks down on letter carriers who have been plucking out marketing mailings with outdated names.

Carriers have, on their own, been quietly defying Canada Post policy that specified that all advertising mail is to be delivered to customers, even if it is addressed to a previous occupant – and even if the recipient says they don’t want it.

No more: Over the summer, letter carriers started operating under the letter of that postal law, meaning each and every piece of mail must be delivered. Carriers are grumbling, and saying customers are incredulous they must intercept their mail – every day – in order to have such incorrectly aimed advertising mailers returned.

But Canada Post says it won’t endanger its half-billion in revenue from mass mailers, and that it is obliged to deliver the advertising pitches that generate the cash, 1.47 billion pieces of individually addressed ad mail last year. “You pay to have mail sent to somebody, you don’t pay to receive it,” spokesman John Caines said.

Canadians can arrange to refuse delivery of junk mail – Canada Post calls that unaddressed ad mail – and they can request to have their own names stricken from direct-mailing lists. But their only recourse in the case of advertising that has their address but someone else’s name is to continue to send the mail back in the hopes the sender eventually gets the message, or to contact each company directly.

It’s not clear just how much mail was being diverted by letter carriers, but a Canada Post study found that 7 per cent of the total mailings weren’t being delivered within a three-day window.