Canada Post to phase out urban home mail delivery

[Esau.]

Canada Post is phasing out door-to-door delivery of regular mail to urban residents and increasing the cost of stamps in a major move to try to reduce significant, regular losses.

The Crown corporation announced its plans in a news release Wednesday, saying urban home delivery will be phased out over the next five years.

Starting March 31, the cost of a stamp will increase to 85 cents each if bought in a pack, up from 63 cents. Individual stamps will cost a dollar.

Canada Post said that over the next five years, it will eliminate 6,000 to 8,000 positions, but it expects 15,000 workers will leave the company or retire within that period.

"With the increasing use of digital communication and the historic decline of letter mail volumes, Canada Post has begun to post significant financial losses," the corporation said in the release.

"If left unchecked, continued losses would soon jeopardize its financial self-sufficiency and become a significant burden on taxpayers and customers."

The first communities that will switch to community mailboxes (CMBs) will be announced in the second half of 2014, according to the release.

read more

[Guest Low Roller]

But how will I fill out my recycle bin with useless flyers now??

[Esau.]

That shit will be outsourced and delivered via private contractors. As the majority of is done already.

[Northern Wish]

I can only hope that they get out of the courier business and sell Purolator Courier back to a private company. Service has been on a rapid decline since CP got their mitts on it.

Rural business owners rely on Purolator and its getting dicey to trust them at all.

[boiler]

I'm sure they will still be delivering flyers into your community box. I've been on the community mailbox / RR system for about 6 years now, they still stuff it with flyers. It's one of their sources of income so I imagine it will continue. While the announcement doesn't really change anything for me for how I get my mail, it's not a very nice thing to do to disabled people and elderly. Hopefully they can do something for people that would be unable to pick up their mail at a community box.

On a different note, I was in the post office today to pick up a package and for some reason they were told from their head office to pull all their "P" stamps so they weren't selling any. Not sure what that was all about.

[boiler]

oh... The P stamps are going up to $1.00.

After many rumours of change, Canada Post has confirmed that changes are coming to the way we receive our mail. Having mail carriers go door to door is just too expensive and starting next year, they will start to phase out door to door delivery of mail. This does not mean you will not receive mail, just that Canada Post will start installing community mailboxes in most neighbourhoods and you will pick your mail up from the box rather than at your door. For me, this doesn’t mean much but with a lot of elderly neighbours, I feel for them while walking out in high heat / cold icy wintery days to check for mail after being so used to delivery at the door.

5,094,694 people get door-to-door delivery in Canada.

Average cost per address is $269.

3,804, 574 get mail through group mail boxes.

Average cost per box is $117.

This also means that less mail carriers will be needed, 6000-8000 will lose their jobs over the next five years (although CPC says that more than this amount are set to retire in that time period).

On top of that, stamps are about to increase by a huge amount, currently stamps cost $0.63 but starting on March 31, 2014 you will pay $1 per stamp (or buy them in a book of 10 or more and pay $0.85) – coupon traders, start buying permanent stamps now! Will such a high stamp price impact what you send by mail?

Read more details here

UPDATE: Canada Post mentioned on twitter (after many questions asking why they removed permanent P stamps from their website already) that P stamps will need to be topped up to the new rate.

That's a piss off. The whole point of the "P" stamp was so they would always be good, no matter what you paid for them. facking joke.

I though when people don't use your service, in a capitalist system, you're supposed to lower your prices to get your product to the price point people are willing to pay for your service? I guess in the Canadian bizzarro capitalist world raising your prices draws in more customers??

Edited December 11, 2013 by Guest

[phorbesie]

UPDATE: Canada Post mentioned on twitter (after many questions asking why they removed permanent P stamps from their website already) that P stamps will need to be topped up to the new rate.

wow, that is total BS!

[Guest Low Roller]

wow. that's a scam. I smell class action lawsuit, with a sweet sweet payoff of a few dozen dollars.

[Davey Boy 2.0]

...paid out in postage stamps

[Guest Low Roller]

You can no longer buy P stamps at the Post Office. They have been removed from circulation.