The Canadian Union of Postal Workers is calling on the federal government to restore door-to-door mail delivery after what they say has been a rash of theft and vandalism at community mailboxes in Richmond.
Mike Palecek, CUPW national president, says that moving to less secure community mailboxes has impacted Canada Post’s duty to protect Canadians’ confidential information—an obligation that’s not being fulfilled when mail is being stolen.
“We know here in Richmond it’s particularly bad as there are hundreds and hundreds of people who have to come to the post office to pick up their mail every day because their boxes have been broken into,” Palacek said.
Canada Post, however, says the broken mailboxes in Richmond are private mailboxes owned by strata associations—and that strata failing to repair them is why customers are left journeying to delivery depots to pick up their mail.
“What we have in Richmond is about 1,100 addresses that are without service. These are addresses served through private mailboxes,” Jon Hamilton, manager of communications for Canada Post, told CTV News.
“If these were boxes owned by Canada Post we would have had them long since repaired.”
Either way, customers in Richmond in complained of long lineups at the delivery depot they need to visit to pick up their mail while their mailboxes await repair.
“Sometimes it gets pretty crazy here,” one man picking up his mail at the depot said. “You’ll have cars just stacked and lines all the way to the end.”
Another woman said she’s spent 20 minutes waiting when she came to pick up her mail near lunchtime.
Frankie Neilson owns a small business in Steveston. The mailbox for his business complex was broken into, so now he spends his day off going to pick up work mail.
“It opens at, what, 10 o’clock? I mean, that cuts into my day,” he told CTV. “It’s a shame they can’t drop it all off at the local post office which is just round the corner from us in Steveston.”
Palacek said the union is also demanding Canada Post release data on the number of community mailboxes where mail has been stolen or destroyed. He believes that information is pertinent to the ongoing review of Canada Post.
“We’re asking Canada Post to come clean,” Palecek said. “We hear a lot of anecdotal evidence of this happening across the country, but Canada Post has yet to release any solid numbers.”
Hamilton said that every community mailbox that Canada Post owns in Vancouver is in service and is safe and secure. He did not specify whether he was talking about the city itself or the Metro Vancouver area, including Richmond.
Palecek sees the solution as restoring home delivery.
“We know that door-to-door delivery is a more secure method of mail delivery,” he said. “We know that anytime you put all the mail into one place it becomes a one-stop shop for thieves.”
During the last election campaign, Justin Trudeau promised to restore home delivery. When he took office, the government halted the conversion on community boxes and established a task force to look into Canada Post issues, but CUPW says it’s still waiting for the promise of door-to-door delivery to materialize.
But restoring home delivery won’t solve mail security problems for all apartment and condo dwellers, who typically use private communal mailboxes within their building.
“I think it’s really up to the strata to make sure your mailbox is secure,” a man picking up his mail told CTV. “Because ours wasn’t that secure and it was pretty easy to break into it. And they did it like three times in a row.”
With a report from CTV Vancouver's Maria Weisgarber.
