Canada’s rural post offices remain under scrutiny

By Carl Clutchey, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Chronicle-Journal

With his background in business, Shebandowan’s Bob Gill knows that an organization can’t operate in the red indefinitely.

Still, Gill likes to be able to pick up his mail at the village’s Canada Post outlet. The outlet just off Highway 11 is only open weekdays until 1 p.m., but the arrangement seems to work for most people who live in Shebandowan or nearby Kashabowie.

The catch is that Canada Post, according to its management, is losing $1 billion annually. To stem the red tide, rural post offices — once considered untouchable by the Crown corporation — are coming under scrutiny.

“As a rural resident, I’d like to see (the Shebandowan outlet) remain open, but I know that Canada Post can’t keep on losing money like this,” Gill said on Friday from his rural home.

When the fate of rural post offices came up at an Ottawa parliamentary committee this week, Joel Lightbound, the federal minister who oversees Canada Post, emphasized that rural delivery isn’t at risk.

But Lightbound also said that Canada Post would no longer be “constrained” by a 31-year-old moratorium on rural postal outlet closures, telling MPs “the transformation” of the money-losing organization has begun.
Not that this was a surprise.

In a Oct. 1 letter that appears on Canada Post’s website, the service’s president, Doug Ettinger, says “so many post offices that were once rural are now in bustling urban or suburban areas with other post offices in nearby stores and pharmacies.”

“In these now over-served areas, we need to update our retail network,” Ettinger said.

In rural Thunder Bay, Canada Post maintains a stand-alone outlet in Kakabeka Falls. Other agency outlets, such as the one in Shebandowan and in nearby Kaministiquia, operate out of local community centres
“We are a busy post office,” said a worker at the Kaministiquia service, who declined to be identified.

The Kaministiquia outlet near the end of Highway 102 serves about 750 customers through a combination of in-house outlet boxes, community boxes and end-of-driveway deliveries.

Meanwhile, retail outlets in Nolalu, Gillies Township, Murillo and Neebing also provide Canada Post services in the absence of stand-alone outlets.

In his letter, Ettinger notes that “less than one in four households still receives door to door delivery.”

“Converting more households to community mailboxes will fuel significant savings,” he writes.

“Each year, Canada Post delivers fewer letters to a growing number of households,” Ettinger added. “At the same time, private companies are delivering more and more of Canadians’ parcels, which adds to our (financial) losses.”

On. Oct. 11, mail delivery and other postal operations resumed after members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) switched from a full work stoppage to rotating strikes.

“Our goal remains . . . negotiated, ratifiable collective agreements that strengthen public services, protect good jobs, and build a sustainable post office that will serve Canadians, no matter where they are located,” the union said in a news release.