Canada Post has calculated how much it will save by ending door-to-door delivery and raising rates, but it apparently hasn’t calculated how much those changes will cost people who depend on mail service. Those costs will be heavier than people realize.
The corporation announced this week that it will end direct delivery over the next five years, replacing that service with clusters of neighbourhood mailboxes.
The community mailboxes are nothing new to many Canadians. Since the mid-1980s, as suburbs developed, Canada Post installed the centralized mailboxes instead of providing door-to-door delivery.
Now, two-thirds of Canadians fetch their mail from community mailboxes, post offices or apartment lobbies. Their mail delivery will not be affected by the corporation’s cost-cutting changes.
To many who will lose door-to-door service, the change will be little more than a minor inconvenience, but for seniors and others with mobility problems, the loss will be severely felt. This is a segment of the population that tends to be less connected to the digital realm, and losing direct mail service will cut off an important link between them and the rest of the world. For those who depend on walkers, wheelchairs or other aids, walking a block or two to a mailbox cluster could be difficult or even impossible.
At a time when delivery of goods and services becomes increasingly depersonalized, seniors and people with disabilities have been able to depend on regular contact with at least one human being — the mail carrier. Carriers have long been an informal but important component of the community support network. As they make their regular rounds, they notice if something irregular occurs. Lives have been saved because caring mail carriers noticed something amiss.
That doesn’t figure into calculations of revenues and costs, but it should.
Canada Post says it will save $900 million a year by axing door-to-door service and raising rates — a first-class stamp that now costs 63 cents will cost 85 cents next spring if bought in a booklet, $1 if bought singly.
The post office says it loses money with door-to-door delivery, but is eliminating it entirely the answer? Surely, money could be saved by delivering two or three days a week, rather than every day. The corporation says it costs $283 a year to deliver mail to 5.1 million addresses. Based on those figures alone, cutting the frequency of direct delivery by half would save about $700 million a year.
Also left out of the calculations are small businesses and home offices. These are enterprises that are generally run frugally, and many depend heavily on postal service for their viability. Profits that are modest now will be greatly diminished or erased by higher postage costs, as well as the extra costs and time required to get mail from a centralized site.
Delivering mail has traditionally been a service of the federal government, but in 1981, Canada Post became a Crown corporation charged with running an independent and financially secure entity following sound business principles. But charging more for doing less generally doesn’t bode well for success in business.
Canada Post has suffered greatly from the ramifications of the Internet, as have many industries. People write far fewer letters today than they did 10 or 20 years ago. Nevertheless, while some opportunities have disappeared, they have been replaced by new ones. Online shopping is increasing dramatically, and those goods need to be delivered. As the largest mail service in the world, geographically speaking, Canada Post faces huge challenges.
But in calculating costs, it should not overlook the people who depend on its services.
