Canada Post on Strike

Oh well no mail again. We've been through this scenario many times over the years!

A few years ago I was in England visiting relatives. I left one glove in my aunt's car in London. She mailed it to my aunt and uncle's house where I was staying near Manchester. The glove arrived the next day and cost less than 10 cents to mail.

Now that's service!

They get mail delivery twice a day and once on Saturday. No mail on Sunday. And they do it for very good postal rates.

Here the cost of postage goes up every year while Canada Post says they have to deal with rising costs and lower customers.

Well, yeah, in this day and age of emails, couriers, and sending money over the Internet patrons don't need to rely so much on Canada Post.

Until they got locked out last night they decided to cut mail delivery to 3 times a week. That idea is actually not too bad. Mostly all I get in the mail is junk mail and bills so getting them 5 times a week or 3 times a week doesn't affect me. Most everyone I know sends emails and letters only seem to arrive for birthdays and with Christmas cards. If cutting mail delivery back to 3 times a week of even twice a week helps Canada Post save money and get their act together and stop raising postal rates all the time then I'm all for it.

Actually we're so close to Blaine that if I'm sending packages I head to the Blaine post office along with many other British Columbians to mail them. However I rarely mail packages. Again in this day and age of gift cards that's the option many people take when it comes to buying presents.

We have a post drop off box near our house and I often see a Canada Post van show up to drop off a mail sack and pick up empty sacks inside the bin. What really irks me is the times I see the Canada Post delivery person showing up or leaving in a taxi to start/finish the route. I've talked to other people who say they've observed this in other areas of Canada - taxi service for Canada Post employees. Who do you think is paying for this?

We live in an area with door to door mail service. Many new subdivisions have mailboxes and the residents in those neighborhoods go to this central area to pick up their mail. I can see how that saves costs. If there's a hundred mail boxes in one spot that saves a mail person from walking the route. Save time, save money. I'd be all for that in our neighborhood. I have no problem walking to a centrally located mail box. The problem is someone I know says they're still on a waiting list to get a mailbox. Hunh? It seems to me Canada Post should install some more boxes? You'd think they'd build enough for all the houses in the area. I guess the problem with these new houses is that they also have basement suites and coach house suites. Instead of being one family houses they're 3 family houses so perhaps that's where the shortages come from.

When I was a kid we had a mailbox in the Canada Post building on the corner of 176A Street and 57 Ave. We were Box 165. When we wanted our mail we had to drive down to the post office, go to our box, open it with a key, and get our mail. Sometime in the late 60's door to door delivery started in Cloverdale.

So there you have it Canada Post my suggestions for saving money. Enough mail boxes to supply the neighborhood. Deliver mail 2 or 3 times a week. Cut out taxi cabs.