BC FORUM News - from The Advocate, December 2014

CANADA POST Fighting to keep home mail delivery

Canadians are adamant about continuing to receive their mail at home,” says NDP Labour critic Alexandre Boulerice (Rosemont – La Petite-Patrie). He made the comment at a news conference where he was joined by Susan Dixon – the woman behind a petition to keep home mail delivery which had gathered more than 200,000 signatures by mid-November.

“Susan Dixon’s petition has struck a chord with Canadians because she speaks for the many who will endure significant hardships if home mail delivery is ended,” said Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) President, Denis Lemelin, who was also in attendance.

Maintaining home mail delivery remains one of the NDP’s main priorities as it intensifies its campaign to save the services Canadians rely on and deserve, said Boulerice. “With this government’s marked trend toward privatization, I would like to know if this is also their plan for Canada Post.”

Boulerice noted that Canada Post’s financial situation simply does not justify these cuts and criticized the lack of consultations to inform Canadians of the reasons for, and potential impact of, these changes. He said the end of home mail delivery will be particularly hard on seniors and people living with disabilities – something Canada Post and Conservatives have completely ignored.

Court challenge

A number of seniors’ groups, the CUPW and organizations representing people with disabilities are planning a legal challenge against the decision to end home delivery.

The groups say that seniors and people with disabilities will be adversely affected by the end of home delivery and accused Canada Post of not studying or debating the decision before it was imposed.

They stressed that businesses will continue to receive door-to-door delivery, even while it is taken away from homes.

A Federal Court challenge under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms argues any decision to end home delivery service must be made by Parliament, not Canada Post, and asks the court to stop the plan.

Lawyer Paul Cavalluzzo said the choice to end home delivery seems to have been made “come out of the blue” with no forethought. “In a massive review of the post office commissioned by the government in 2008, there was no mention whatever of the elimination of home delivery,” Cavalluzzo said.

“I would ask Canada Post, ‘What studies were you relying on? Did you even take into account the interests of disabled and senior Canadians?’ I don’t think they did,” he said. Advocates say many people with disabilities choose to live in cities to have easier access to services, home delivery mail included.

Parts of Canada can become lethally cold in winter, and Dave Nelson of the Saskatchewan Disability Income Support Coalition said he foresees issues with people getting their mail in a timely way, if at all, once home delivery is ended.

Ending home delivery also concerns women’s advocates.

Laura Track of the West Coast Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF) said women who are fleeing domestic abuse could be located by their abusers staking out community mailboxes.

Track said women are most at risk in the weeks immediately after they leave abusive partners.

“That would be the time an abuser could be looking for them, and having to pick up their mail from a centralized location in public could very well put them at risk,” Track said.