With Canada Post’s door-to-door mail delivery under threat, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers has launched a national campaign to save it.
Using everything from “save door-to-door” lawn signs to posters to social media, the local CUPW branch has gotten involved.
“We are going to lose eight to 10 positions within our community when we go to community mailboxes,” says Mieka Guerin, letter carrier and president of the Port Alberni branch of the CUPW. Those jobs represent approximately a quarter of those employed by Canada Post in the Valley.
According to Guerin, that’s just a fraction of the 8,000 jobs across Canada that could be lost if Canada Post stops door-to-door delivery.
“That’s a pretty big hit.”
According to a 2014 Canada Post press release, “the operations of the Canada Post Group of Companies are funded by the revenue generated by the sale of its products and services, not taxpayer dollars.”
Due to this, Guerin said, switching to community mailboxes won’t save taxpayer dollars; it will spend them.
“It is up to the municipal budget to pay for the lighting, to pay for the sidewalks and snow removal around community mailboxes. That has to come out of somewhere and unfortunately that’s taxes.”
According to Guerin, Canada Post will install the community mailboxes and choose their location, although residents and property owners will have input.
In the meantime, more and more of the distinctive “save door to door” signs have cropped up on lawns across the Valley.
To order a lawn sign visit www.savecanadapost.ca, search “save door to door delivery in Port Alberni” on Facebook or ask their carrier.
reporter@albernivalleynews.com
twitter.com/alberninews