Canada Post's plan to end door-to-door mail delivery in the country extends to Yorkton in fall of 2015. That is when addresses in Yorkton will see the end of home delivery, with homes with postal codes beginning in S3N will cease to receive mail at their door, instead being directed towards community mailboxes. This will affect 5,262 addresses in the city.
Anick Losier with Canada Post says that the process is going to take twelve months, and people will soon receive a package from Canada Post which includes an information kit and a survey to ask what residents their preferences surrounding how they want the community mailbox set up in their area.
"At the very micro-local level, almost down to the street, we know what the local concerns are and we try to adjust our selection of sites based on those preferences."
She says that Canada Post's priority is a box that is in a well lit area with a sidewalk if at all possible, though she admits to challenges in terms of older neighborhoods with less real estate available for setting up the boxes.
"Finding the right location is always a challenge. Take the example of the North Shore in Montreal, based on the feedback from residents as well as the feedback from the municipalities, we probably changed close to fifty per cent of the sites selected. In the end, collaboration produces better site selection."
The consultation process is taking a year because they found that the eight months taken on the previous round of consultations was very compressed, Losier says. The full year between announcement and implementation is in order to do the consultation process more effectively.
The majority of mail will be handled through the community mailbox system, and Losier says that they are designed to accommodate the majority of parcel traffic, with anything too large being delivered to the door or via the nearest post office.
"This represents a secure parcel locker for people receiving more items."
The most impacted group by the loss of door-to-door is people who have mobility issues, such as senior citizens or people with disabilities. Losier says that Canada Post has a team dedicated to finding a solution for people with accessibility issues and they will work with people to find a solution to ensure they continue to receive mail.
"Do you go get your groceries or medication where there is a post office close? Can we send it to somebody that's close to you? Is it a matter of just opening the community mailbox? For example, my mother has arthritis so for her it's difficult to turn that little key, so we have solutions as simple as just having a bigger key. For people that it's much more serious and they have a smaller network, we will in some cases deliver to the door once a week."
Another big question is in terms of jobs, and this move will see a smaller Canada Post overall. Losier says nobody will lose their job, because Canada Post has an aging workforce that is nearing retirement age. She expects that there will be hiring in some areas, as the overall number of retirements outpace the number of jobs that need to be eliminated.
While many residents of the country do not want to see door-to-door delivery end in the country, Losier believes that it will be something people will adapt to quickly.
"There are about five million addresses with door-to-door delivery, but the rest of Canada, over 10 million, they don't have door-to-door delivery... For the majority of Canada it doesn't change. For those that it does change, people will have a reaction to it and it will be a big change for them. But from what I've seen from the conversion in 2014, once people see the amount of attention we place on where we select a site, the upkeep and maintaining of the site, people generally react very positively."
