Canada Post ‘temporarily suspending’ community mailbox program

With more of the controversial boxes being erected in Montreal, Ottawa and London, Ont., the union representing postal workers is urging Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau to contact Canada Post to halt the process.

The Crown corporation says it is temporarily suspending the program.

Up to this point, the proposed conversion included about 460,000 addresses across the country.

As a few 30,000 Londoners made the switch from door-to-door delivery to community mailboxes Monday, Canada Post announced it was “suspending future deployment of the program”.

In statement released on Monday, the Crown Corporation says that “all conversions” planned for November and December 2015, and those scheduled to follow in 2016, will be placed “on hold”.

But those already converted over the last 10 months will not get door-to-door service back – at least not under Canada Post’s current plan.

“We remain focused on maintaining reliable postal service to all Canadians without disruption”, the release said. Customers affected can expect a letter delivered in the mail in the coming weeks with information on their delivery service.

However, in neighbourhoods where the conversion to community mailboxes is complete, customers will continue to collect mail at the community boxes.