On Monday, Richmond was ground zero for a tiff between postal workers and their employer, Canada Post, in what appears to be an ongoing problem — mailbox vandalism and theft leading to long queues of residents looking to pick up their mail at the city’s sorting depot at No. 3 and Cambie roads.
At the root of the problem is not only the sheer volume of people being inconvenienced, but also the expectations on Canada Post to help fix the damaged mailboxes.
The Canadian Union of Postal Workers claims there are about 1,500-4,000 homes without mail service in Richmond, in any given month, whereas Canada Post pegs that figure at closer to 1,000.
“Residents in Richmond, B.C., have been affected by theft and vandalism to their community mailboxes. We know this is happening across the country, yet Canada Post refuses to come clean” said Mike Palecek, CUPW’s national president.
“We know in Richmond it is particularly bad. . . Richmond is a place where we’re hearing a lot about this.
“The question is, what are these actual numbers? We’re trying to get Canada Post to tell us exactly how many are apartment boxes and how many are community mailboxes, so we can start looking for solutions,” said Palecuk.
One affected resident has been Thomas Xue, who told the Richmond News he is expecting a two-month delay in mail delivery to his accounting firm on Bridgeport Road, due to vandalism of his strata’s mailbox.
“Who can fix the box? No one it seems,” said Xue.
The problem for condo and apartment owners, much like business parks, appears to be that when a strata mailbox (as opposed to a community mailbox on a public street) is broken, it is up to the property manager to fix the problem.
All Canada Post can do, according to spokesperson Jon Hamilton, is “encourage [the strata] and provide information” on how to fix the box.
“We don’t have any control of the mailbox in the condo,” said Hamilton.
“We provide standards. It’s up to them what they want to install,” said Hamilton, likening a condo mailbox to one in a home purchased at a hardware store.
“Until we can deliver to those boxes, and they’re secured, we are keeping mail at the depot for pickup,” said Hamilton.
He said it is not up to Canada Post to fix the boxes.
The crown corporation also doesn’t have any data on whether or not apartment boxes are more vulnerable than Canada Post community mailboxes, and whether or not design specifications and/or requirements for the former are as robust as the latter.
Palecek used the opportunity in speaking to media Monday to denounce the corporation’s “dismal failure” in transitioning from door-to-door service to community mailboxes.
“We know when you put all the mail in one place it becomes a one-stop shop for thieves,” he said, noting more information on the problem is required for the public to make an informed decision on whether they want their neighbourhoods to transition to community mailboxes, per policy proposals.
Hamilton said considering there are five million households in Canada, the problem is relatively small and the union was making “self-serving” comments to media.
The squabble is of little comfort to Xue, who said Canada Post should have a “duty of care” to fix broken boxes.
“I contacted Canada Post. They don’t care. . . Canada Post is so bad, the service is so low. They don’t know how to solve the problem,” said Xue.
