Federal government asked Canadians about radical changes to mail delivery

Ending home delivery, shutting rural post offices, and move to three-day-a-week service were among the ideas in a December poll commissioned by the Privy Council Office.

Weeks after being named the minister in charge of Canada Post, Filomena Tassi polled Canadians to see how they felt about making some radical changes at the Crown corporation.

Those changes include shutting down rural post offices, ending all home delivery in favour of community mailboxes, and cutting back mail delivery to three times a week.

The poll was put in the field in mid-December, six weeks after Tassi was named minister for Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) and three weeks after the Crown corporation said it lost $264 million on revenue of $5.4 billion in its third quarter, the most recent quarter for which financial results are available.

It was clear from the content of the poll questions that Tassi’s office was keen to explore ways to cut costs and reduce losses.

But the very fact that Tassi was even asking those questions has angered the union representing 61,000 postal workers.

“We’re really concerned and disappointed the government is actually taking a poll right now about reducing postal services when the public is actually asking them to have more services, not less,” said Jan Simpson, president of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW).

“Postal workers have been working throughout the entire pandemic and for them to have this poll currently is very insulting to us.”

Simpson said CUPW was not informed or consulted about the poll and, coincidentally, it was doing its own poll in December asking Canadians about Canada Post.