Canada Post is under fire for phasing out home delivery with 'mega mailboxes'

Canada Post has been transitioning its delivery system in urban areas from traditional door-to-door service, to communal mailboxes, but not all stakeholders are on board.

A number of Montreal-area mayors want to join an existing federal lawsuit filed by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers that aims to reverse Canada Post's plan that has been in effect since 2014 due to issues related to safety, maintanence and the power of municipalities, according to CBC News.

"The cities were working with Canada Post on a solution, Laval Mayor Marc Demers said, but the Crown corporation wasn't following any of the advice given," the CBC report reads.

The Montreal-area mayors would be joining a lawsuit that was filed by CUPW in October.

According to CBC News' coverage last fall, the suit sought the discontinuation of the communal mailbox plan on the grounds that it violated rights of the disabled, affected "employees and vulnerable citizens without prior consultation," and that Canada Post was abandoning "a public service that's defined as part of the statutory monopoly it enjoys."

CUPW attacked the post office's plan most recently in a May 12 release, labeling the "mega mailboxes" as dangerous due to "a disturbingly high number of safety concerns and personal injuries" that are being reported by residents who have been forced to transition to the new system. 

“Our money-making post office needs to consider the consequences of its ill-advised plan,” CUPW President Mike Palecek said in the release. “Clearly, there are already serious concerns and a surprising number of personal injuries, which warrant further investigation.”

The CUPW release said concerns that were expressed by a majority of respondents in a Stratcom poll of 497 people in the areas that lost home delivery in 2014 included "difficulty with access due to snow, litter, accidents such as slips and falls," and "difficulty with access due to frozen locks."

The CUPW and the Montreal mayors are not the only ones concerned with Canada Post's plan. 

CBC News reported Friday that a resident group in London, Ont., the city government in Hamilton, Ont., have resisted the transition, while in Britsh Columbia, "more than 130 communites filed 4,800 complaints to the Crown corporation [regarding communal mailboxes] between 2008 and 2013."

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