By Doug Draper
Whenever I happen to be in the driveway or front yard of our home and the Canada Post mail carrier arrives, I jokingly say to them; ‘If all you have are bills or junk advertising, never mind our mail box. Here is the garbage container right over here.” 
They almost always chuckle and respond that they know what I mean, but they have to deliver all-means-of crap other parties – wanted or unwanted addresses to our door anyway.
That is just my way of saying that a little more than some Niagara and Canadian residents at large may welcome the news from Canada Post this December 11th, 2013 that home to home deliver of mail to urban areas will be phased out in favour of ‘community postal boxes’ and that the price of stamps will rise significantly, but what do you think?
Yes, there are many f us who have turned to the internet and send may of our messages to friends and other via email and ecards, rather than do the old letter and card thing, and send it through Canada Post. To that extent, we have to confront the often-true old line; If we don’t use it,we lose it.”
Some of us may be old enough to remember that the same thing happened with bread and milk delivery to our door, and we went on – for better or worse – buying milk and bread in big box stores.
On the one hand Canada Post is claiming that ending door-to-door delivery could save multi-millions of dollars per year. On the other hand, ending this service will cost thousands of Canadian jobs in the postal service (and these are people who work and support families and spend money in our communities). They are among another group of workers losing jobs that deliver livable wages in a country that is increasingly offering minimum wage jobs at big box stores and fast food restaurants.
For a report from Canada Post on ending door-to-door mail deliver and, at the same time, significantly increasing the cost of a postage stamp click on http://www.canadapost.ca/cpo/mc/assets/pdf/aboutus/5_en.pdf
For a response to this from the Canadian Union of Postal Workers click on http://www.cupw.ca/index.cfm/ci_id/14792/la_id/1.htm
(Niagara At Large invites you to share your views on this post. A reminder that we only post comments by individuals who share their first and last name with them.)
Niagara At Large 
This idea has always scared me because I am handicapped and heading out in various weather types is not what I do. So I know if I am given a community postal box to go to, I will get there maybe once every 2 weeks. As it is now I get very little “real” mail so I am very happy to have our letter carrier come to my home every third day. I have no idea what arrangements I would have to make if we get switched over to the other system. Thanks.
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At the end of WW2 a considerate and liberal Canadian government created small town postal routes to accommodate the job needs of the mass of returning veterans. I well remember those happy vets, as in those days I worked sorting mail in such a post office for a few hours after school. Too bad our current conservative government cannot do as much for our honoured Afghanistan vets. Maybe the incidence of combat begun and being-unheralded induced PTSD in veterans would be partially resolved – if the present-day government had the heart to think of the real bottom line in other than immediate monetary terms.
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First you complain about receiving “all-means-of crap other parties – wanted or unwanted” send, and then you turn around and lament the passing of door-to-door delivery.
Who do you think pays for that delivery?
Not stamps. Heck if it was funded only by stamps it’d cost $10 or more to send a letter.
No sireebobcattail… it’s businesses — yes, those horrible, evil, manipulative, corporations — that have been subsidizing your precious snail mail all this time. In fact the only thing keeping it going this long is direct mail advertisers.
Once the oldsters who don’t have computers and smart phones die off, there’ll be very little snail mail, if any.
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