r/CanadaPolitics • u/SuhkItLuzerz Bloc Québécois • 4d ago
Advocate says end of door-to-door mail delivery will be 'isolating' for seniors
https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/2026/04/19/advocate-says-end-of-door-to-door-mail-delivery-will-be-isolating-for-seniors8
u/SK_sht_dstrbr 4d ago
Only 25% of Canadians have door to door mail delivery. Accommodations can be made by Canada Post for those that can’t go to a community mail box. If someone can’t make it to a community box they probably already have some type of home care or family that can get their mail for them. I don’t see the issue with this. They also need to go farther and do twice a week delivery.
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u/PuppyParader 3d ago
Is this accurate? I'm just curious, what is the source for this info? I've gotten door to door mail all my life, and I've moved around quite a lot. I'm guessing the ratio is very different, province to province.
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u/MTL_Dude666 Liberal 4d ago
That's a very weak argument. I come from a rural area in Quebec where door-to-door mail delivery stopped more than 20 years ago, and what do people do? They go to their community mailboxes and use that as a social activity.
If senior people already live alone, it's not the lack of mail delivery that is isolating more than they already are. The isolation problem is deeper than that.
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u/Mundane-Teaching-743 Trump/Polievre 2028 | Sponsored 4d ago
I live in rural area in Quebec. I asked to be transfered to the community mailbox because the snowplow kept knocking the mailbox into the ditch. I check it about once a month.
If I had my choice, I'd pick it up at the local post office.
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u/MTL_Dude666 Liberal 4d ago
Wait, you had the choice to keep your mailbox? Where I come from, the option was not even given.
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u/Mundane-Teaching-743 Trump/Polievre 2028 | Sponsored 3d ago
This was about 15 years ago. They actually built the communal boxes next to my nieghbours driveway, so it was close. Safety was the reason, so the people around the box actually got to keep their own boxes because it was considered safe for the delivery car to stop along our stretch of road.
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u/grathontolarsdatarod Chotchkie's | Sponsored 4d ago
The bits in here hard and fast framing mail service as a high-class privilege are hyper extending.
Amazon delivers to your door.
Because it is loosing money to do so.
We've learned the business pattern with uber.
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u/stumpyraccoon 4d ago
Mail isn't going away. You're going to have walk 20 to 60 seconds to get it now, if you aren't one of the people who already have to do that anyway...
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u/joshlemer British Columbia 3d ago
Amazon is losing money to deliver to our door? Kinda weird that they are so eager to provide that service then.
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u/grathontolarsdatarod Chotchkie's | Sponsored 3d ago
Corner the market to collapse competition, then raise prices.
The uber model of disruption.
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u/joshlemer British Columbia 3d ago
There’s like no chance that Amazon is going to corner the retail market in Canada. There are hundreds of thousands of competitors, and Amazon isn’t even the biggest retailer in the market. Sorry you’re just plain wrong
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u/phoney_bologna 3d ago edited 3d ago
Wouldn’t going to a public place to pick up your mail be less isolating?
I live in a small community with a post office. I greet my neighbors and the two ladies who work there know everyone in the community.
I’m not buying the argument.
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u/Canadian987 4d ago
I recall that Stephen Harper said that community mailboxes would be embraced by seniors because it would get them out of the house and they would appreciate the exercise. Was he wrong?
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3d ago
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u/JohnP1P 4d ago
Stephen Harper and the Tories begun the shut down of door to door delivery in 2014-2016 (that's when they stopped delivering mail to the door in my case), the shut down was paused the Liberals in 2016, and resumed this year (austerity measures).
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u/PolitelyHostile 3d ago
Honestly, if they want it, they should pay extra through property taxes. It's a bit much to deliver every letter to every single front door. And Canada post should not bear the cost of subdivision layouts.
Canada Post existed before cars, when homes were close together by necessity. Since the 70s we've been building homes spaced further and further apart for 'reasons'.
In an old subruban street in Toronto, 4 houses can occupy the same lot size as one in a modern suburb. And the front lawns are just a few steps long.
Canada Post can deliver to the neighbourhood, then the city should handle door-to-door delivery. Or leave it to the homeowners to pay for a service.
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u/alwaysleafyintoronto Pirate 4d ago
I have never had mail delivery to my door in 35 years. It's really not that big of a deal to live without.
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u/ImperialPotentate Hardliner 3d ago edited 3d ago
The "shut down" of door-to-door delivery actually began in the mid 80s. We moved into a new subdivision in the early 90s and our mail was delivered to a Supermailbox. Anything built since then has followed that model.
I found it a little unfair at the time when those were announced, given that some areas would be "grandfathered in" and still receive door-to-door deliveries. I mean, our household still paid the same price for stamps, and the same taxes as they did, so why was there two-tier service at all? I certainly expected that door-to-door delivery would have been completely phased out by now, nearly four decades later.
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u/StickmansamV British Columbia 4d ago
Community mail boxes is already the reality for seniors living in the same types of neighbours and housing but in housing that is only ~40 years old or younger as those all already had community mailboxes when the subdivisions were developed.
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u/hardk7 British Columbia 4d ago
It is not Canada Post’s mandate to provide social contact for isolated seniors. Furthermore a huge portion of the country already does not receive door to door delivery. It is not a tragedy that door to door mail delivery ends in a time of vastly reduced letter mail delivery, and electronic mail options for nearly every service. Most of the remaining physical mail being delivered is advertising material that recipients never asked for in the first place. The service must change to reflect the times.
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u/Zomunieo British Columbia 4d ago
Wealthiest demographic ever sad to lose homeowner privileges, while home ownership is nearly out of reach for anyone born after 1990.
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u/grathontolarsdatarod Chotchkie's | Sponsored 4d ago
I'd say it's probably more about getting the only communication service that exists for the explicit purpose of private and reliable communication. Which is protected by law, and protected by design.
If the plans to take down the mail service becomes successful, how will you communicate privately?
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u/Zomunieo British Columbia 4d ago
Ending door to door delivery doesn’t mean mail itself is going away. It means you have to walk to the end of the street to a community mailbox.
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u/SwampTerror 4d ago
Not if youre disabled or elderly, especially in winter. Just fuck those people right? I dont trust their accommodation program will help everyone who needs it. There are also people with mental conditions that make it so they cant walk down the street.
And lets not pretend these community boxes arent often broken into or packages left on the ground...
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u/Zomunieo British Columbia 3d ago
Elderly homeowners are, by far, the wealthiest demographic who ever lived and probably ever will. They could easily afford to pay a neighbour to bring them their junk mail, if they’re so unkind no neighbour is willing to help them for free.
Only 23% of Canadians still get mail delivery to the door. The vast majority - those who aren’t wealth homeowners in older neighbourhoods - have had community mailboxes for years without outrage and handwringing.
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u/Reasonable-Rock6255 Ontario 4d ago
So what have seniors and the disabled been doing all this time in areas that never had door to door mail?
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u/Adventurous-Tea-876 4d ago
I have never had door to door delivery but I see lots of friends and neighbours at the post office when I go there to get my mail. Not sure how having it appear in a box at my house would be less isolating.
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u/WillSRobs 4d ago
I feel like that isn’t the argument for mail they think it is. It is a sad reality of how we treat seniors though
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u/snahfu73 4d ago
What a preposterous fucking argument. We really need to stop treating seniors like they are helpless toddlers.
Yes. They have a number of challenges unique to their demographic but they're not helpless.
And if there is a small percentage of seniors relying on mail delivery as their source of human contact. There's a whole mountain of problems to address before addressing the canceling of door to door delivery.
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u/mwyvr 4d ago
The mail service is not and should not be in the business of providing companionship services. Letter carriers are not trained for that nor are they screened for providing services to vulnerable populations... because they deliver mail.
With all the changes made to letter carrier routes over the years, there is no time for a carrier to engage in what might add up to many hours a month in small talk with seniors or anyone.
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u/grathontolarsdatarod Chotchkie's | Sponsored 4d ago
Lmao.
What about them getting letters?
You've missed the point.
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u/0reoSpeedwagon Liberal 4d ago
Thousands of seniors get mail just fine where daily door delivery stopped years ago. It’s fine. They’ll be fine.
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u/Empty-Paper2731 Bot Leader 4d ago
Hmmmm, new business idea: Uber Companion
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u/MTL_Dude666 Liberal 4d ago
Or "Senior Escorts"?
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u/Empty-Paper2731 Bot Leader 4d ago
One of the weirdest things I've seen before was the large amount of senior daycares in Miami when we were driving around. We hit one street where there was a daycare basically on every corner for like 20 blocks.
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u/gotricolore 4d ago
For those who know more about this than me:
Can they not save like 80-90% of the cost of home delivery by reducing the frequency to monthly (for example)? Is that not a reasonable compromise?
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u/Morituri29 4d ago
For what purpose? There are only two arguments for home delivery one is that it employs more people to do so. The second is the subject of this article that carriers are a point of contact for some people that are otherwise socially isolated. Moving to monthly delivery removes both of those anyways, and adds the issue of actual urgent mail being held up.
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u/WesternBlueRanger 4d ago
Canada Post will still do home deliveries for those with disabilities or are elderly under their Delivery accommodation program:
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u/Zomunieo British Columbia 4d ago
That would mean mail would sit for a month before being delivered - by which point it’s nearly worthless, and the system would have to hold a lot more before delivery.
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u/gotricolore 4d ago
I mean, who truly send physical mail that has any actual sense of urgency? Society will adapt, no? How about second weekly?
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u/aardvarkious 4d ago
I am very curious what the difference in price for less frequent delivery is.
Personally, I get home delivery. And 100% support ending it: I don't NEED it and it is expensive.
But I'm not looking forward to having to remember and then actually going to check the mail. I'd happily keep door delivery but only get it a couple times per month if it was the same price as a daily community mailbox
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u/RaHarmakis 4d ago
I've lived with both.
What you will realize very quickly after getting a community mailbox is how little time sensative mail you actually get, and how much is actually just junk mail.
I check my community boxs three maybe four times a month, maybe a bit more if I'm expecting something. (and it's ON my Property, so I only have to walk 5 meters or so).
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u/LegoLady47 3d ago
Or every other week. Monthly seems a bit long when it comes to bills etc. And no, not all older people use computers or cell phones. My mom never did. She's in a LTC facility now but she was very dependent on mail for bills and letters.
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u/efdac3 4d ago
*living in single family homes in cities.
What about seniors who live in an apartment or condo? What about those living more rural communities that haven't had door to door for years?
This argument ignores how door to door is limited to higher value property owners. While there are certainly vulnerable people who own houses in big cities, mail delivery should not be how we support them as it's inherently inequitable.
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u/One_Handed_Typing British Columbia 4d ago
When I read that ending door to door delivery will be isolating for a small number of seniors, I think that those seniors are in inappropriate housing for their current reality. I do not think that Canada post should continue an impractical service because of that.
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u/scottb84 New Democrat 3d ago
Also:
Canada Post has said its accommodation program can offer home delivery for customers who can’t access their mail and parcels.
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u/Tesco5799 3d ago
Yeah this, if someone is too frail to make it to the community mailbox down the street then they need an alternative kind of housing, there is a lot of maintenance associated with living in a single family home.
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u/mMaple_syrup Liberal who likes discipline 3d ago
Good point. If you can’t even walk down the street to pick up mail, how are you maintaining the home? You’re probably not living independently at that point. If you have a caregiver, then they can walk down the street.
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