Canada Post suspends mailbox program, too late for most in Halifax-area

HALIFAX – The installation of community mailboxes has been halted as the federal Liberals follow through on an election pledge to move away from plans to scrap door-to-door home mail delivery.

Canada Post said Monday the nearly half-million home slated to lost their door-to-door service through December will now keep their service instead.

Previous communities where mailboxes were installed, including over 13,000 homes in parts of Spryfield, Armdale, Fairview and Clayton Park in August, will not have their service restored. The same goes for those in parts of Dartmouth including Cole Harbour, Woodlawn, Portland Estates and Westphal.

The Halifax peninsula will continue to receive door-to-door delivery, as an end service date had not yet been decided.

The union representing postal employees said in a press release that it’s happy with the news, but CUPW also said they would be pushing the new government for a full reversal of cuts under the Harper government.

Customers impacted will receive a letter within the next few weeks.

“I think the people of this country spoke quite clearly last Monday,” said Mike Palecek, president of the national CUPW.

“And we need to look at having a public mandate review for Canada Post about exactly what direction we want this Crown corporation to go.”

CUPW has been pushing Canada Post to expand its business into ventures such as postal banking services, similar to those adopted in other countries including the United Kingdom and France.

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau promised during the election campaign to reverse cuts to door-to-door mail delivery that were begun under the Harper Conservative government.

And with the Liberals elected to a majority government, some Liberal MPs said they were getting an earful from constituents who wanted to know why the boxes were still being installed.

There were several localized protests against the installations in Ontario and Newfoundland and Labrador, with some people defiantly taking to standing or lying on dirt piles to prevent workers from placing cement foundations for the mailboxes.

Canada Post, however, was adamant that it was moving ahead with the mailbox conversions, telling CUPW late last week — after the election results were known — that it would not back away from the plan. It also placed ads to hire door-to-door canvassers to sell the merits of community mail delivery in British Columbia.

But late Monday, the Crown agency said it would rethink its plan.

“We will work collaboratively with the Government of Canada to determine the best path forward given the ongoing challenges faced by the Canadian postal system,” the corporation said.

Canada Post has been warning for some time that it expects home mail delivery revenues to continue to decline.

It announced in 2013 a plan to phase out door-to-door delivery and cut up to 8,000 jobs, mainly through attrition. The corporation said it handled nearly 1.2 billion fewer pieces of mail in 2013 than in 2006.

Canada Post Group reported in May that letter mail volumes fell 8.4 per cent in the first quarter of 2015, or by 41 million pieces, compared with the same period a year earlier.

At the same time, however, the agency said it recorded a 10-per-cent increase in overall revenues and a before-tax profit of $24 million in the first three months of the year, contrasting with a $37-million loss during the same quarter in 2014.

Canada Post Group includes the Canada Post mail service, Purolator and other businesses.

Correction: A previous version of this story stated that houses in the Dartmouth area had still been receiving door-to-door delivery but that is not the case. The whole province outside of the Halifax peninsula have already made the change to community mailboxes.