Jay Bryan: Canada Post plan is a disaster
MONTREAL — It would be inadequate to describe Canada Post’s “Action Plan” to improve its finances by wiping out much of home mail delivery — a first among advanced industrial nations — as flawed. In fact, it’s a disastrous abdication of responsibility by the Harper government, marketed to the public through deception and leading nowhere.
A Conference Board report commissioned this year by Canada Post says 34 per cent of all households enjoy delivery to a single-family home. Another 25 per cent are apartment dwellers whose letters go to a lobby mailbox at their address. Finally, 12 per cent of the population get delivery to a rural mailbox beside their driveway.
Add it all up, and about 71 per cent of Canadians now enjoy home delivery. Only those in older, urban neighbourhoods (where the Harper government tends to be unpopular) are to be deprived of this service.
That’s not the impression created by post office spokesperson Jon Hamilton, who said the other day that “door-to-door delivery has really only been a reality for a third of Canadians for a long period of time,” a statement that was widely accepted in media reports, but that is entirely misleading. It was made possible only by falsely assuming that apartment dwellers and rural Canadians don’t get delivery to their home address.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/Bryan+Canada+Post+plan+disaster/9285178/story.html