Green Party Leader Elizabeth May has come up with some sensible suggestions, but restoring door-to-door mail delivery isn鈥檛 one of them.
NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair also says the service should be restored, and promised his party would do that through legislation, if necessary. Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau has promised to stop the delivery phase-out and conduct a review of Canada Post, if his party wins power in the October federal election.
May stood in front of a community mailbox in Halifax Tuesday and asked reporters to imagine what it would be like in the winter, 鈥渨ith ice everywhere.鈥�
鈥淧icture people trying to get from their homes to this postal box on foot,鈥� she said. 鈥淭his is idiocy. We need door-to-door mail delivery.鈥�
No, we don鈥檛. The elimination of door-to-door delivery affects only 32 per cent of Canada Post鈥檚 customers. For years, the majority of 91原创s have collected their mail at post offices and community mailboxes, through all seasons of the year, in all kinds of weather, and somehow they have survived.
If those party leaders favour restoring door-to-door service, shouldn鈥檛 they be promising it for all 91原创s, in the interests of fairness? That would be unaffordable and impractical.
It would also be an anachronism 鈥� electronic communication has replaced so much of what the postal service used to do, and 91原创s are sending and receiving much less mail than they used to. Domestic lettermail delivery decreased from five billion pieces in 2006 to four billion in 2012.
Party leaders have many important issues to address in this election. Door-to-door mail delivery isn鈥檛 one of them.
