Nearly 20,000 Greater Victoria households will move from home delivery to community mailboxes by next fall, Canada Post announced Thursday.
“The process will take about a year and we’ll be looking for feedback,” said spokesman Jon Hamilton.
The first postal codes to be converted begin with V9A, V9B and V9C. The 18,008 affected homes are in Victoria, Langford, Colwood, Saanich, Esquimalt, View Royal and the Songhees First Nation.
The households will receive a package in the mail with information and a mail-in survey that could help determine how and where the community boxes are placed in their areas.
“It’s really important that people fill in the survey. They have been very helpful so far,” said Hamilton.
Residents are asked about their concerns with respect to accessing mail and whether they would prefer smaller boxes closer to home or larger parcel boxes farther away. “We’ve found so far the preference is for the smaller letter-size boxes.”
Hamilton said Canada Post is working out a way to improve parcel sections of community mailboxes, and to make keys easier to use for seniors and those with disabilities. In some cases, Canada Post will deliver mail once a week to those with no other options.
The Crown corporation began the first phase of the national changeover from home delivery this week, with 74,000 homes and businesses from Halifax to Calgary moving to community boxes. Another 26,000 addresses will be moved in November.
Plans for 2015 and beyond are still being determined, said Hamilton, but the entire country is expected to be on the community-box system within five years.
He said the impetus for the change is to save taxpayers money — $400 million to $500 million a year — and make Canada Post more efficient.
“The way Canadians are using mail has changed,” Hamilton said, noting 1.6 billion fewer letters were sent last year than in 2006. But parcel mail, likely due to online shopping, is on the rise.
The changeover won’t result in any direct layoffs but about half of the 15,000 Canada Post employees set to retire across the country in the next few years will not be replaced.
That translates into a loss of about 100 positions in Victoria, said Janet Barney, president of the local Canadian Union of Postal Workers. “There will be job losses. … Everyone gets shifted down. There are less routes to go around,” she said. “The biggest impact will be to the customer with the loss of door-to-door delivery.”
For View Royal resident Christopher Avis, who will likely be in the initial shift, the change is not a big deal.
“It’ll be a minor inconvenience to have to walk to a mailbox, but I bus to work and I imagine I’ll end up having to walk past the mailbox anyway on the way home,” he said. “Given Canada Post’s revenue situation, this seems like a sensible cost-saving measure.”
But Saanich resident Dom Richards said it will be a strange and disappointing day when his mail is delivered to a community postal box instead of his front door. His address is likely to be in the first phase of the changeover.
“I just find it odd in a residential neighbourhood. I could understand in an apartment building,” said the software development manager. “My main concern is safety, damage and theft. We order a lot of things online.”
Local politicians share this concern. Victoria MP Murray Rankin wrote a letter to Canada Post in July asking about the practical challenges of having the boxes in urban areas. He has yet to receive a response.
“You can’t retrofit an urban and suburban system for a built-up urban area. Where are they going to put the boxes? In our parks? Where will people park? What about litter, vandalism?” Rankin asked. “And who will pay for this? Not Canada Post. The municipalities.”
