Newmarket council wants Transport Canada to halt community mailbox installation

Yorkregion.com
June 4, 2015
By Chris Simon

Newmarket council has called for an immediate end to the installation of Canada Post’s community mailboxes.

The town will ask the Ministry of Transport, which oversees Canada Post, to halt the erection of the mailboxes and engage in “full and meaningful” consultation with the municipality and residents.

Municipal staff will also be tasked with developing standards that force Canada Post to apply for permits and pay fees that reflect the resources required by the town to install and maintain the mailboxes in established neighbourhoods.

Under the plan, councillors will also take steps to align the municipality’s bylaws with City of Hamilton rules that regulate the installation of equipment on roads. Aurora is going through a similar process.

“Canada Post is not willing to give the municipality adequate time to consult,”

Councillor Joe Sponga said, noting changes would also affect infrastructure such as utility boxes.

“We have pretty much exhausted every opportunity to have a meaningful discussion. This leaves us with no other tools in our toolbox but to join the fight with other municipalities.”

Earlier this year, Newmarket identified 19 proposed mailbox locations that could cause traffic, sight line or other safety issues. The town also asked Canada Post to extend its consultation period by 180 days at that time.

But Canada Post spokesperson Susan Margles said the organization has engaged in a thorough consultation process with the municipality to date. Newmarket council was informed of the organization’s plan to convert nearly 9,000 households to the community mailbox format in November 2014. After that, surveys were sent to each affected household and 94 per cent of respondents chose smaller groups of boxes close to their homes, she said.

“Canada Post’s five-year initiative is a complex but necessary action that we are taking to transform our business in order to address the ongoing decline of lettermail volumes,” she said, in a letter to the municipality.

“When we began the conversion in Newmarket, we sent information packages with detailed surveys to all affected residents by which they could express their priorities and preferences. We had significant response to both the online and mail-in surveys, which gave residents the opportunity to tell us which issues matter most to them. We analyzed the information and shared the feedback ... in December.”

The town was given a draft mailbox location plan in January and Canada Post staff met with many of the residents who live adjacent to the proposed sites, Margles said.

“Every person’s situation is unique and we tailor our solutions to individual circumstances on a case-by-case basis,” she said. “We look for locations away from high-traffic areas and busy intersections and we do install boxes using existing street lighting and sidewalks where feasible. Canada Post is also responsible for all installation and maintenance related to the community mailboxes and has been since they were introduced 30 years ago. This includes addressing instances of graffiti and litter, as well as removing snow.”

Canada Post recently announced it would end home delivery of mail in Newmarket sometime this fall. Instead, residents will be asked to pick-up bills, letters and flyers and many of their parcels, from the community boxes.

Roughly 200 could be erected in town.

The switch is part of the service’s long-term action plan. Other changes include the introduction of a tiered pricing structure, the expansion of franchised offices, streamlining operations and addressing labour costs. Canada Post is expected to save about $700 million to $900 million per year once the plan is fully implemented - with the community mailbox conversion accounting for about $500 million of that.

“Some (locations) are just common sense; they should not be located where they are,” Councillor Jane Twinney said. “I hope this bylaw has some legs to stand on. It’s been very difficult for some residents to get communication with Canada Post, other than customer service, which really hasn’t resolved any of their issues.”