News Releases

Rural mail delivery, a Canada Post priority

Jan. 14, 2008

Canada Post Corporation would like to firmly dispel any misconceptions that might have arisen, from recent media reports or other sources, about the future of rural mail delivery. We would like to reiterate our commitment to rural mail delivery and to assure our customers that the ongoing Rural Mail Safety Review is NOT an attempt to reduce service in rural Canada. It is aimed at providing our Rural and Suburban Mail Carriers (RSMC) a workplace free of undue risk.

Human Resources and Social Development Canada (HRSDC or Labour Canada) has ruled on 40 workplace safety cases as a result of RSMC complaints. Our Safety Review is a direct follow up of those rulings. We continue receiving workplace safety complaints from RSMCs; to date we have received over 1300. These complaints were backed by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, which represents the RSMCs and validated by health and safety experts at HRSDC. Also, our RSMCs have been involved in 68 accidents since January 2004. As a responsible employer and respected service provider Canada Post is morally obliged and legally required to address this issue.

The federal government has directed us to maintain rural mail delivery while respecting all applicable safety laws. We intend to maintain rural mail service as always. We consider changing a customer's mode of delivery only as the last option when the safety of our mail carrier is in question. The Rural Mail Safety Review could cost Canada Post up to $500 million over the next five years. This is clearly not a cost cutting measure but an expression of our commitment to employee safety. This money is not spent merely on assessing whether or not a mailbox presents a delivery safety hazard but also to exhaust all possible avenues to keep serving rural mailboxes and ensure customer convenience. All our RSMC vehicles are equipped with Canada Post signs and flashing amber lights. We provide paid assistants to RSMCs so delivering to mailboxes doesn't pose an ergonomic problem of reaching out from the driver's seat to the passenger side window. Wherever needed we install and maintain community mailboxes within short distances of customers' homes.

There are over 843,000 rural mail boxes in Canada. They are served by over 6,600 RSMCs. RSMCs pull their vehicles over at each rural mailbox, deposit the mail and then merge back into traffic to proceed to the next address. Increased traffic volumes, the nature of roads (narrow or no shoulder), visual obstructions like curves and hills, are just some of the conditions that increase the risk of accident during mail delivery. Since an RSMC repeats the mail delivery sequence more than a hundred times on each mail route every day, the probability of an accident increases exponentially. Matters become worse in the winter when snow banks narrow down the road and block the view of oncoming traffic.

We hired internationally renowned traffic safety experts, who have been recognized by the federal government for their contribution, to develop a set of criteria to determine whether or not delivering to a rural mailbox poses an undue risk to the mail carrier. The criteria consider various factors such as road conditions, traffic volume and clarity of view for oncoming traffic.

During the review Canada Post informs each and every customer affected of all the steps throughout the process by letters, newspaper advertisements and in-person meetings.

For more information on this project Canada Post customers can call 1-866-501-1669 or visit us at www.canadapost.ca/ruralmail