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Union lobbying city to support door-to-door mail

May 23, 2017 | 4:08 PM

A local union is lobbying hard to bring back a service members call crucial to the community.

Door-to-door mail is an essential service Ellen Bowles with the Canadian Union of Postal Workers said. Her group will be in Prince Albert city council tonight asking the municipality to write a letter to the federal government in support of reinstating door-to-door service.    

“We believe that Canadians should have better services and we believe those [community] mail boxes are not the best service that could be provided in terms of mail delivery. We believe that door-to-door should be in every community and we’re just on the road advocating for people to support that,” Bowles said.

Late 2016, a federal standing committee recommended a freeze on the construction of community mailboxes and bringing back delivery to those cities that lost it. Other recommendations included continuing a moratorium on post outlet closures, and suggestions to provide other services like banking or accessibility to broadband from the outlets. Bowles said postal outlets should be better utilized, not closed.

“We’ve got 6,300 post offices across the country, two-times the amount of Tim Hortons. These recommendations speak to service expansion. We should be asking the federal government to tell Canada Post to leverage their retail and logistics networks,” she said.

According the Bowles, Prince Albert lost 12 full-time, full-benefit positions – mostly mail carrier positions – when the city went to community mailboxes. Aside from the jobs, she said removing door-to-door didn’t make sense for an aging demographic. Bowles said mail delivery made for a safer community in many different ways.  

P.A. residents interested in bringing back door-to-door services, will receive a free mail-in within the near future. Bowles said the postcards are addressed to Minister of Public Services, Judy Foote and show support for delivery services.

 

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