Thousands of south side residents to lose door-to-door mail delivery

Canada Post - Community Mailbox

A number of homes in south Edmonton are set to lose their door-to-door mail delivery Monday, but the change is being met with some resistance from customers and from some Canada Post workers.

As of Monday, about 30,000 customers in south Edmonton will get their mail through community mail boxes – outside one south side mail depot, a dozen postal union members were protesting the change.

One worker said the changeover was difficult in Sherwood Park, saying some workers had to work 14 hour shifts to get their mail deliveries finished.

“It’s just impossible to do that many, with that many items and mail volumes, the parcels, the packets, and we’re not even in Christmas now,” Dan Murri, a mail carrier, said. “When it comes Christmas it’s going to be eight hours parcels and eight hours mail.”

The union workers also said the community mail boxes decrease property values of the homes nearby, and people with mobility issues will have problems getting their mail.

In at least one case, a resident has taken preventing the community mailbox from being installed into his own hands.

“I plan on doing my best in my feeble condition to guard my dirt, so they don’t take my dirt away to put in cement blocks to put in those boxes,” Ken Pudetz, a resident who has physically blocked the space where his area community mailbox is supposed to be installed, said.

However, Canada Post said the change is being made in a bid to keep the Crown Corporation financially viable.

“Mail is declining every single year, as people go online to do more and more things they used to do to get their mail, pay bills, get their bills, so we have to make changes,” Canada Post spokesperson Jon Hamilton said.

Canada Post said door-to-door delivery costs three times more than community mailboxes – the plan is to completely eliminate door-to-door delivery by 2019.

With files from Nicole Weisberg