Green postal boxes set to disappear from rural areas
By Timothy Schafer
Green postal boxes in rural areas will be a thing of the past as Canada Post now looks to organize the country lanes of the regional district into distinct communities, says the RDCK’s chief administrative officer.
Jim Gustafson said community postal stations are coming to the Regional District of Central Kootenay — as money is available through Canada Post.
“Now (rural people) will get their mail through a community mailing station,” he said. “The green boxes you see everywhere are on the way out.”
Canada Post wants to place a civic address on everybody in the rural areas of the RDCK, and across Canada.
They originally wanted the RDCK administration to provide them with the addresses, giving them distinct boundaries for nearly 100 defined communities in the regional district — outside of the municipalities.
“What we told Canada Post was we are not in a position to adjudicate or establish community boundaries,” Gustafson said. “It would extremely time consuming and disjointed to go out and find where one community ended and the next one began. The regional district won’t determine that.”
There are 97 defined communities in the RDCK.
However, the RDCK did give Canada Post digital information they had on the communities in regards to civic addressing they use for fire purposes.
When Canada Post makes their determination of where the community boundaries lie, the regional district will receive postal codes attached to those fire addresses in return.
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See also
• Canada Post missive could create division
For more information
• Canada Post plans for rural Canada
Canada Post rationale
Safety of rural mobile delivery personnel on busy roads has been an ongoing concern.
Canada Post launched the Rural Mail Safety Review as rural and suburban mail carriers across the country, supported by their union, raised complaints about workplace safety.
As of March 2008, there have been more than 1,400 such complaints. In some cases, the union staged protests in delivering mail, even after Canada Post tests showed there was no undue traffic safety risk at a particular mail box.
Such cases were referred to Labour Canada, who in several instances asked Canada Post to cease delivery to mailboxes. In December 2006, the Canadian government ordered that Canada Post maintain rural delivery wherever possible.
On January 1, 2004 rural route contractors became employees of Canada Post. They are represented by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers. Their Rural Suburban Mail Carrier contract expires on Dec. 31, 2011.
Source: Wikipedia
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