It looks as if door-to-door mail delivery is going to continue in North Battleford, unchanged, for the foreseeable future.
In a statement issued Monday, Canada Post says it is temporarily suspending future deployment of the program to convert door-to-door mail delivery to community mailboxes.
“We will work collaboratively with the Government of Canada to determine the best path forward given the ongoing challenges faced by the Canadian postal system,” the news release stated.
According to Canada Post, efforts are now underway to put the program on hold “in an orderly fashion.”
All conversions for November and December 2015 are on hold and those announced for 2016 are on hold as well.
That includes North Battleford, which had been due to be part of the transition to community mailboxes.
Members of council acknowledged the situation at Monday night’s meeting in North Battleford.
“That program is now put on pause,” said Councillor Ryan Bater, who has been a vocal opponent of the switchover.
“I just wanted to acknowledge that, because it was something we have been talking about. We had a lot of questions about it, and now there’s even more questions — how long on pause, and what does this mean?”
There had been initial discussions between Canada Post and city officials about the proposed transition, with Canada Post finishing up a review of potential locations for community mailboxes for North Battleford just last week. A door-to-door information campaign had also been planned for early November.
The transition had come up as a topic of discussion at council’s last meeting earlier this month.
While Canada Post did not give an official reason for their reversal, it is obvious the announcement is in response to the change in government. Justin Trudeau’s Liberal party had pledged to reverse cutbacks to Canada Post during the recent campaign.
According to Canada Post’s news release, customers across Canada impacted by the decision to suspend the transition will receive a letter within the next few weeks advising them of the status of their mail delivery service.
But in neighbourhoods where the 10-month internal and community conversion process is complete, customers will collect mail and parcels at their community mailbox. This includes customers set to begin receiving their mail and parcels in their boxes in October.
