- A Canada Post employee fills a super mailbox on Bristol Drive in Chatham recently. This will become a familiar site in urban areas in Chatham-Kent, and around the country, in the future. But just when it will take place locally is not yet known.
While Canada Post has made it clear that door-to-door delivery in urban areas is ending, the timing of the phase-out in Chatham-Kent remains a mystery.
“We don’t know yet,” said Anick Losier, a Canada Post spokeswoman. “Certainly, what we announced was a new chapter in the postal service in Canada, one that we’ll start planning and implementing in 2014.”
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Closing the book on door-to-door delivery was announced Dec. 11 as part of Canada Post’s five-point plan to make the corporation sustainable in 2019.
Over the next five years, one-third of Canadian households that receive their mail at their door will be converted to community mailbox delivery. The move is expected to save $500 million a year.
According to Losier, the conversion is still in the planning stages.
“When we’re going to go into each community to make any changes, we’re going to go neighbourhood to neighborhood, work with the municipality and work with the customers, and really do it progressively to implement this change,” she said.
The first neighbourhoods slated for conversion in the second half of 2014 will be announced once plans are finalized.
Losier added the move will have no impact on the two-thirds of Canadian households that already receive their mail and parcels through community mailboxes, grouped or lobby mailboxes or rural mailboxes,
Another change will see Canada Post introduce a new tiered pricing structure for lettermail mailed within Canada.
Under these changes, the majority of Canadians, because they buy stamps in booklets or coils, will pay 85-cents per stamp, with discounts for customers that use the mail most.
People who buy their stamps one at a time will pay $1 per stamp.
Canada Post said the new system, which goes into effect March 31, will better reflect the cost of serving various customer segments.
The other points of the plan include opening more franchise postal service outlets in retail businesses, streamlining operations and reducing labour costs.
As part of the latter, 6,000 to 8,000 positions will be eliminated through attrition.
“If we continue with this business model that was built in the 1970s, we would have a deficit of $1 billion by 2020. So that is not an option,” said Losier, “Something that we heard loud and clear when we went into communities across Canada is that they told us we’re very busy, we’re using you differently, but we also don’t want to pay for your deficit through our taxes.”
