Canadians must say if Canada Post is more precious than junk mail: Don Pittis

The young Ottawa man gave me a start whenhe walked up behind me.

"Why are you takingpictures of my house?"

I'd been caught red-handed earlier this summer snapping his overflowing mailbox, one of several on the street. On the other hand,it was a perfect opportunity for me to find outwhyhe never checked to see if there was everanything useful amidst the junk mail. A royalty cheque? A birthday card?

"I get everything by email," he said.

If post boxes are nothing buteyesores, perhaps it's time to get rid of them. But at least now we have a chance to decide.

With thechange of government, suddenly the future ofCanada Post is no longer set in concrete.Canadians have a brief window todemandthe kind of mail service they need. And it may not last for long.

• Canada Post's delivery debate reignites as Liberals set to take office
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The fact is while some Canadians are so electronicallyconnected they can afford to ignore their mailboxes, others depend on the service as a lifeline.

Recent figures show that while 95 per centofCanadians in big cities are linked to the net, thenumber plummets to 62 per cent among the poorest quarter of Canadiansand less that 20 per cent in some rural communities

During the federal election campaign, there was abacklashagainst the move from home delivery tocommunity mailboxes.

Backed by a federal government that seemed to have given up on support from dense urban areas, where home delivery works best,the post office appeared to havestopped listening to Canadians.

Owners not customers

Canada Post may think of itself as a business. Its literature shows it thinks of us as customers. Butunlikethe Royal Mail in Britain,which has become a listed profit-making company,Canadians are not customers ofCanada's postal service. We are owners.

The service Canada Post provides is based on a charter.

The opening line of that charter, that you can read on page 28 of the Crown corporation's latest annual report, says that it "was created to provide a standard of service that meets the needs of the people of Canada."

It is up to Canadians, through their governments, to decide whether Canada Post is meeting those needs.

Do you need junk mail?

Canada Post is currently paying highly reliable postal workers civil service wages to deliver us junk mail. Even if you ask them to stop, you will still get the kind of addressedjunkbegging letters, credit card offers that if you got by email, you would immediately label spamand never see again.

Do you need to receive addressed and unaddressedjunk mail? Or is that just a way for corporate Canada Post to make higher profits and higher executive salaries? Do you need Canada Post to have higher executive salaries?

Canada Post has a valuable business model that has worked around the world for hundreds of years.It makes us pay for stamps and promises to deliver mail to any address in Canada. As part of our national duty,those of us mailing wedding invitations down the streetsubsidize letters to isolated communitiesin Nunavut.The duty of Canada Post is to do it efficiently.

The fact is, for those rare occasions you need to send a paper letter, stamps are pretty cheap.

Time to say what you need

Do you need home delivery? Do you need a group mailbox on your tiny urban lawn? Do you need to have municipalities cut out of the decision-making process onwhere to place those mailboxes? Do you need disabled and infirmCanadians walkingon icy streets to get their mail from boxes they can't reach?

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In an era when most of us receiveemails and texts within seconds of them being sent,do you need daily postal delivery? Or would once a week do?

Earlier this year, Canada Post CEO DeepakChopra said making millions of dollars in profits, partly due to a boom in parcel deliveries from increased online shopping, would not make him change his mind on home delivery.

Clearly Canada Post managers must make difficult decisions to keep the postal service affordable. Group mailboxes in places like apartment buildings are only reasonable. A similar case could be made for spacious rural or suburban locations where distances between houses are large andpeople drive everywhere anyway.

But changes to our postal service must be done with the consent of its owners, based on the needs of its owners. The windowisopen. Now is your chance to step up and tell Canada Post what you need.

Follow Don on Twitter@don_pittis

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