The fuss in the news is about the $200 charge per individual box to be passed onto the customer. For the privilege of collecting their mail.

My fuss is that some people live in a household where important, date involved mail still arrives; or a where something might not work anymore if it's left in a mailbox at 30 below temperatures; or where prompt attention makes a difference to an important medical treatment going ahead. We have our own mailbox at the front door. But a communal one not conveniently placed would be quite an issue for our household unless we got to it several times a day to check mail.

Or just the bizarre inconsistency of someone in "that" house having it delivered to the door while someone else 20 yards away doesn't even though they pay the same level of taxes and the same postal rates.

Presumably this is something one considers in the decision to live outside city limits.

The $200 overhead as part of constructing a new home is minuscule in terms of the overall build price. Would you rather pick up the tab on behalf of the new homeowner or builder by paying higher postage fees to cover it instead? It's not about a privilege of collecting mail - community boxes are common place, they help keep delivery costs lower.



I'd suggest needing to check a mailbox several times a day is unusual, and given you're only going to get one delivery, a little obsessive. If you check once every 12 or 24hrs, what are you going to miss? There are always going to be exceptions to the rule, but can CP be expected to cover everyone's eventualities? It's just unrealistic. Get a courier if the service you require is so critical, then see how cost effective CP is.


It's hardly that onerous to pass by a mailbox and pick up mail. Perhaps I should have paid less taxes for the past 8 years having to stop my car for 30 seconds on the way home each night.


I barely give it a thought, and it certainly doesn't affect my quality of life or make me resentful of those that have doorstep delivery.

There you have it

It's a cheap and effective way of weeding out the weak and needy in society. Himmler would approve.

CP have recently been running a similar "safety" review of rural mailboxes here too.

The news regarding ours was delivered by a well dressed and seemingly well-educated lady who was driven here by her driver in a not-inexpensive car. Ironic, I thought, as their decision was unchangeable and they could have posted the "money saving" announcement to me using their own service...

She broke the news to me, that I was losing the delivery service to my mailbox and I had the choice of either a 'free' PO box at the nearest town, or, the option of keeping my mailing address and mail being delivered to one of these "superboxes" that they might build sometime, somewhere at the bottom of the hill. in a very questionable manner. She told me all about the safety concerns and the county-wide timings and visibility factors that they have to adhere to. I jokingly pointed out the realities to her and she gave me a "I know but I'm paid to tell you this shit! Hahahaha!" smirk in return.

Had she asked me, she would have found out that I was in total agreement anyway. "Seems like a good way to cut costs", I might have said. Often in winter, the hill is just too dangerous to drive up, so I can empathise with their drivers there. The snow plough usually renders my mail box into oblivion, surrounded by a hard coldness composed of all things left on the road during the fall as well as everything that fell from the sky during the winter; my shoulder is ****ed and having to dig said mailbox out with a pick axe just causes me more pain and anger.

I think I bought that mailbox just a few years ago and the weather has already turned it into a soggy biscuit. If I don't get the junk leaflets or flyers in time on a Thursday morning, they'll be wet if it's raining or the wasps will have nested in them, if not. I even met with a nurse this summer who gave me a tetanus booster on account of the probability of me getting infected by the rusty mailbox scourge of my life.

I use FedEx where possible, CP for parcel delivery? Ha! Fun if you're obsessed about tracking and want to watch your order being trucked all the way from California, via Vancouver (where it has a five day vacation).

As for everything else, there's just no excuse for it not being electronic now. If I can order, download and print cinema tickets on my own printer, sign e-contracts online, do bill payments online and set up automatic banking etc, etc, then surely, I neither need a mailbox, a PO box, a superunsnowiceclearedmailboxwithnoroomforlargeparc els or Canada post services other than what can be offered at the post office.

"Safety reasons"? Pah! For "safety reasons", we should all unite and simply stop using Canada Post...

Given mail arrives any time between 9.00 am and 10.00 pm with no pattern at all here, opening the front door and flipping the lid next to it a few times doesn't seem too obsessive to me.

Going out and trudging to a community mailbox a few times daily...now that would be different. That's why I don't like the idea.

See previous post.

Quite right. Makes you wonder why why Canada Post can't take the same view for the side street when they are already delivering in the surrounding streets doesn't it.

Lucky you.

'We' as in everyone in Canada or just the few angry birds (I mean Brits) on here?

I don't CP will lose sleep over it

It's true. Canadians don't complain when they lose a service they have been previously used to. In fact they consider it their patriotic duty to like it.

Communal mail boxes are a great way of getting people out of their houses and walking down the street. Even if they go get the mail in a car its still activity for me.

Build more i say

Check first thing in the morning or last thing at night then. is the mail so urgent you need to open, respond and mail back within a few hours?



You may find community mailboxes, given that they make CP's work more straightforward, a better option - my mail is delivered within a 30 minute window every day. No need for checking multiple times. I've yet to meet a neighbor that regularly trudges back and forth with obvious distaste for collecting their mail because of any level of inconvenience it serves them.



No, it doesn't. Comparing CP's responsibility to deliver to 1000's of addresses, to an individual's effort to check a single location for mail isn't a logical argument. The cost saving of centralizing delivery to community mailboxes means you don't incurr increased postage charges - or are you willing to pay a premium for door to door delivery? Perhaps I'm not willing to subsidize your apparent sense of entitlement too.

We have always had a community box since coming to Canada. I don't see it as any issue and its checked very few days on the way home from work, no biggee.

I cannot for the life of me see how this thread has gone on for 6 pages.

You did post a reply ?

I've seen people drive to their rural mail box, on their own property. Taking the yappy dog with them.

Did you not actually read my comment then?
"My fuss is that some people live in a household where important, date involved mail still arrives; or a where something might not work anymore if it's left in a mailbox at 30 below temperatures; or where prompt attention makes a difference to an important medical treatment going ahead."

Do you not know that some people worry? And that if they are already suffering some sort of health problem that worrying might just not help with that? There is a peace of mind issue involved if you have received something important and returned it with time to spare.

But I already get delivery at the door...or have you not read that as well? I don't know why it has to be a premium. It's a public service. It doesn't seem right to me that some people pay but they don't get the same service that others get.

Why should one pay more to get what others get for less?

That reminds me of a bit of satire I heard on Radio 5Live the other week.

It's a bit over dramatic in this context but still quite apt.

It doesn't affect me. We have a mailbox next to the door. But I am able to imagine the effect if we didn't have that and I can imagine circumstances where members of the household would have worries that would be better avoided.

Still, just tell them not to worry eh. That should do the trick.