Anick Losier was surprised to hear that North Island-Powell River NDP MP Rachel Blaney has been hearing complaints about community mailboxes in her riding.
A spokesperson for Canada Post, Losier was responding to a press release issued late last week by Blaney.
“We’ve had very few complaints,” said Losier.
Losier says Canada Post has only received one request from the MP on behalf of a constituent in the Campbell River area to move a community mailbox closer, and that request will be granted.
Losier says with our milder winter weather, Canada Post wouldn’t normally be salting the community mailbox sites in Campbell River, but because it did freeze here, they sent their site supervisor out to deal with it.
“The manager in the area says they are well cleared and very satisfied,” said Losier.
If there are issues such as the locks freezing because of the cold, Canada asks customers to contact the customer service department.
People can create a service ticket online through canadapost.ca or call the customer service line at 1-866-607-6301.
“Once you are assigned a ticket number, it immediately goes to the local team to make sure it gets resolved and to make sure people have access to their mail,” said Losier.
“We have people dedicated to making sure these get done. The minute we know from our employees or our customers if there’s an issue, we’re going to act.”
In her press release, Blaney had also brought up the issue of letter carriers in Campbell River working overtime, and Losier says when it comes to Canada Post employees working overtime, this Christmas was a record year in terms of parcels sent, and they saw more greeting cards being sent this year.
Employees who do work overtime are “paid accordingly to the collective agreement,” and Canada Post hires extra staff, known as relief workers, so that the employees don’t get too tired, said Losier, noting that staff who work overtime do so on a volunteer basis.
Losier says overtime work was not related to the conversion to community mailboxes.
“We had a very big holiday season,” she said. “The holiday season for us is very, very busy, but we also do it within the parameters.”
The conversion from door-to-door mail delivery to community mailboxes has been suspended since late October, and in Campbell River, delivery to the door has been maintained to those homes that were not converted to community mailboxes in the fall. Where the switch has already been made, community mailboxes will continue to be used until the program is reviewed.
Losier says there are no updates at this time about what will happen with the conversion from door-to-door delivery to community mailboxes.
In a mandate letter to ministers, the new Liberal government stated there would be a review of Canada Post, and that review has not been announced yet. Once that review gets underway, Canada Post plans to collaborate with the government to see how they can offer their services at an affordable price, said Losier.
