I have worked at Canada Post for almost 34 years and I currently work at a Canada Post Corporate Outlet in Dartmouth. Whether you’re sending or receiving mail or parcels, you’re counting on our reliable and self-sustaining postal system for your family’s needs or your business. I’m one of the 50,000 people who make that system work every day.
In 2013, when the previous government tried to cut door-to door-delivery of mail, I spoke out. I took action with my union, our neighbours, and community organizations. I spoke before the Parliamentary Committee that conducted the review of Canada Post when they were in Halifax on October 4, 2016.
Many of you stood with us and together we stopped further cuts! We’re still calling for a better post office, and fighting for services that you and your neighbours can rely on. We are advancing many ideas to Canada Post that are sustainable for the future and more relevant than ever.
Postal banking, for one, is where post offices offer banking services — everything from paying bills and managing savings accounts, to mortgages, loans, insurance, investments and more.
Currently there are thousands of towns, villages, and indigenous communities without even one bank branch, some that have even lost their last ATM. But many of them do have a post office that could provide financial services. A 2014 study by the Canadian Postmasters and Assistants Association (CPAA) found that there are almost 1,200 rural communities with a post office but without a single bank or credit union.
Meanwhile, nearly 2 million Canadians are relying on payday lenders and their predatory fees. Even those of us who can use the big banks are paying some of the highest service fees in the world. We need another option.
Postal banking is a proven success, operating in sixty-one countries around the world. Some of them contribute a significant share of their postal service’s revenue, making them a key to the long-term viability of these important services. Some also have a social mandate – to make sure everyone has access to affordable banking.
That’s why postal banking is part of a bold coalition vision that we want you to know more about: Delivering Community Power. In It, postal workers and allies propose using the postal service as part of the solution to a variety of environmental, economic and social issues.
Delivering Community Power proposes new services at Canada Post like grocery delivery, affordable broadband internet access in communities that currently lack it, and postal-worker check in on seniors so that they can live longer in their own homes. It would transform Canada Post into a renewable-powered, efficient system, with an electrified vehicle fleet, building retrofits and improvements, and other green initiatives.
Altogether the vision would lead to a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, a highly visible example of the green transformation we all need to make, and support for decent, stable jobs in communities across the country. All while keeping your letters and parcels flowing at affordable rates.
We’re here to serve you and we’re pushing for better postal services for everyone. We’ve taken some of these ideas into our current round of collective bargaining with Canada Post. I hope that, like in the past, you’ll stand with us: call on your member of Parliament to implement postal banking, and support us in our negotiations with Canada Post.
Mike Keefe
Retail Clerk, Canada Post
Dartmouth, NS
See also: A postal service for the 21st century
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Very well said Mike….Retired CPC worker
Very well written, I also work for Canada post, and all I know is we try our best for the company, we all just a job and a pay where can support our families.
A better Canada Post for me would be one that would redeliver a parcel when I have, unfortunately, missed the delivery person. As a wheelchair user, I am unable to travel to the post office, never mind carry a box. I make every effort to be up and have the ringer on the phone but when they come by on a Sunday (Dec. 23), with no warning on their tracking website that they might be delivering on the weekend, there was no hope of me expecting them. I was home but had the ringer off the phone so I missed the delivery. I called and asked for redelivery on Dec. 24. On Dec. 31, I called again to find out the ticket was closed and they refused to redeliver. By the way, I live almost across the street from the post office so it would only take someone about five minutes to do this for me. What’s really maddening is I’m expecting another delivery from Canada Post today so I asked, on Monday, if someone from the Almon Street distribution centre (which is around the corner from where I live!) could call me so I can explain the problem and have whoever is delivering a parcel today to take a few minutes to swing by the Lawtons’s post office and grab the two boxes waiting there. If I don’t get them by Friday, they are returned to sender and I really need one of the items so that’s why I have no choice but to fork out $10 (a hardship for me on my low income) for a courier to pick them up for me tomorrow.
I am going to send a letter of complaint about this ongoing problem of Canada Post having a meltdown on the rare occasions I have asked for redelivery. FedEx and the others do not have such poor service for customers with disabilities. You just call them to say you missed the delivery and they come back the next day.