Editorial — Getting doctor’s note for mail delivery a dumb idea

SATURDAY MORNING EDITORIAL — Canada Post’s dogged determination to cut costs is reaching absurd proportions.

Door-to-door home delivery, which is already a shadow of its former self, is to be phased out over the next five years in favour of a complete switch to community mailboxes. The plan isn’t making Canada Post the most popular entity in the country, especially with seniors and the disabled.

Until this week, the only answer the post office was able to come up with was that exercise is good for old people. Now, it has tried to improve on that concept by saying anyone who will have difficulty getting to a community mailbox to pick up their mail can still get doorstep delivery once a week if they provide a doctor’s note.

Alternatively, Canada Post will hand out extra keys to caregivers, or adapt the community mailboxes to make collecting the mail easier.

Doctors don’t like the part about notes. Neither do seniors. Susan Eng of the Canadian Association of Retired Persons called the idea “idiotic.”

The reason doctors are unhappy is that nobody from the post office asked them about it. They say they’re busy enough as it is without writing notes for people who need to get their mail.

Canada Post should scrap the whole idea of getting rid of home delivery and find some other way of saving money.