Canada Post ends home delivery for thousands

Canada Post stoppedhome delivery to 74,000 addresses in 10 communities across the country on Monday, part of the Crown corporation's move to end all urban door-to-door mail service to five million Canadians in five years.

People in the affected areas will have to get mailfrom their local community mailbox.

Canada Post says it is phasing out home delivery, and cutting thousands of jobs, owing to financial losses stemming from falling mail volume and increasing use of digital communication. The corporation says Canadians mailed almost 1.2 billion fewer pieces of mail in 2013 than they did in 2006.

The addresses affected bytoday's changes include:

• 12,500 in Winnipeg.
• 10,450 in Calgary.
• 7,900 in the Ottawa suburb ofKanata.
• 450 in FortMcMurray, Alta.

In Montreal's North Shore, people living in Repentigny, Rosmre, Lorraine, Charlemagne and Bois-de-Filionare included in today's change.

Canada Post hasn't been open with its employees about the decision-making surrounding the cuts, said Andrew Rosenfeld, a mail carrier in Lachine, Que.

"People don't really know what's going to happen, they don't know why it's happening," he said. "They're just not well-enough informed because Canada Post never asked anybody."

In Winnipeg, about 12,400 homes and 70 businesses in the areas covered bypostal codes beginning in R2P and R2Vareincluded in the changes.

Marilyn Loden, a resident of The Maples areaof Winnipeg, said she ishappy with the change.

"I'm away a lot so I have to get my daughter to come get my mail, whereif I have it in a box, then it'll just be there when I get back," she told CBC News.

In Kanata, Ont.,where about 500 community mailboxes have been installed, roughly7,600 households and 300 businesses had their direct delivery service end today.The affected postal codes includeK2K, K2L andK2M.

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• Canada Post to phase out urban home mail delivery

Last week, theCanadian Union of Postal Workers teamed up with groups representing seniors and the disabled to launch a Federal Court challenge against Canada Post's decision to end home delivery.

The case will argue, in part, that the elimination of mail delivery violates Section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees equality rightsfor groups like disabled citizens.

The union placed a community mailbox in front of Parliament Hill on Monday to protest the changes. About a dozen union members attended the protest wearing hats that said Save Canada Post, CBC reporter Judy Trinh said.

National president Denis Lemelin said the elimination of door-to-door delivery should be debated in Parliament.