CUPW Wants Details on Mail Box Theft
Prince George, B.C. – The Canadian Union of Postal Workers is calling on Canada Post to release details on the number of thefts from community mail boxes across the country.
The Federal Government had promised to restore door to door mail delivery and the Union says Canada Post “has a duty to protect Canadians’ confidential information and must come clean on the extent of the theft problem.”
Last December in Prince George, 14 community mail boxes were hit in the course of less than a week. There have been at least two more such events in this community since then.
“ We know this is happening across the country” says Mike Palacek, National President for CUPW “yet Canada Post refuses to come clean.”
CUPW is demanding a full report on theft and vandalism to community mailboxes and the restoration of door to door delivery. The Trudeau Liberals had promised to restore mail to mail delivery as part of their election campaign.
“Since Canada Post first planned to replace door-to-door home delivery by installing community mailboxes, we warned that it would not only be a loss of precious public service needed for so many, but also that it would jeopardize the privacy and safety of Canadians. This is what’s happening now.” adds Palecek.
Comments
If Trudeau promised it, I am sure he will deliver. :)
“The Trudeau Liberals had promised to restore mail to mail delivery”
Think that was also supposed to read “door to door delivery”
How many mail boxes on the sides of houses were hit in door-to-door areas? You do have to compare apples to apples to have a valid argument
Oh here we go again. I like my mail delivered to my front door.
More importantly, how many pieces of mail were sorted improperly and ended up at 1265 Hinkel St rather than 1265 Alter St, four streets over?
Happens to us too frequently.
These days we get very little mail. Bills, etc,. come by e-mail, so no theft and no false delivery.
My mother cannot walk to the mail box (they installed it in a 60+ year old neighbourhood in Ottawa about a year ago and stopped door to door delivery). They bring the mail to her house, since she is old, every Wednesday. So, a parcel with some chocolates from us can sit there from Thursday to Wednesday in a hot summer climate and melt by the time she gets it. The only place which is not in a controlled temperature environment.
Get everyone to put up mailboxes at the street front, give each mailperson a vehicle with a right side driver seat and deliver directly to the houses again.
Pretty skinny box of chocolates, parcels have to be picked up at the nearest postal outlet
as you mentioned, these days you get very little mail so why pay a union worker to walk around with an empty bag?
“give each mailperson a vehicle with a right side driver seat and deliver directly to the houses again”
Wow, I am as far from being an enviro as anyone but what a ludicrous idea! Not only that but the thieves would love it, they won’t even have to get out of their vehicles to steal the mail, just pull up and have a buddy grab the mail from the passenger seat, easy , peasy.. This is just more union fear mongering.
Poor Mike Palacek!
The only thing that he is concerned about is losing Union members and more importantly, the Union dues that his members pay into his kitty every paycheque!
Anybody that seriously thinks he gives a rats a$$ about anything else is delusional!
Unions are BIG business and Mike probably gets paid a very hefty salary to whine and complain about mail theft from community mailboxes!
Mike, here’s a newsflash for you, some of us are more than happy to have our mail delivered to the community mailbox in our neighbourhood. Far far safer than sitting in an unlocked and unsecured mailbox beside my front door!
If Mike is seriously concerned about mail theft, he would be insisting that we return to the days when everybody went to the Post Office to pick up their mail. The mailboxes there are far more secure than community mailboxes and home delivery boxes! Mike won’t ever fight for or even suggest that as going back to Post Office boxes would decimate his membership!
Boo Hoo Mike, find a real cause to fight for!
“some of us are more than happy to have our mail delivered to the community mailbox in our neighbourhood. Far far safer than sitting in an unlocked and unsecured mailbox beside my front door”
How do you know that?
Time to share your research!
Oh come on gopg2015, really?
Yes, some of us are more than happy with community mailboxes! My research? Many of my friends, acquaintances and relatives have all commented at some time or other about this issue and how they, and I have no issue with community mailboxes!
So far, I know that none of my community mailboxes haven’t ever been broken into. Back in the days when I last had door to door delivery, back to 1997, I never ever knew if my mail was stolen. If I came home and there was mail in the box, I knew I received mail. If the box was empty, I either didn’t get any mail that day, or what I did get was stolen. Either way, I had no way of knowing!
goph2015, that’s my research! Do you have any research that compares stats for theft from community mailboxes as compared to theft from home mailboxes. Undoubtedly, there will be an issue with accurate date for theft from home mailboxes because as I stated above, how does one even know if someone took their mail from their open and accessible home mailbox?
By the way, my 82 year old Dad gets his mail at the Post Office every day. He likes it that way because it gives him an excuse to get out of the house so that he can go meet his buddies for coffee! Community mailboxes and home delivery would ruin that for him! ;-)
I am with Hart Guy, I like the community mailboxes, I can go on vacation or whatever and not have to worry about my mail.
My reply to this boo who bs is you dont give a rats a$$ about people…only that your a$$makes dollars off of others!
ice, here’s my biggest concern and it should concern you as well!
Canada Post’s unfunded pension liability is massive, a $6.5 BILLION dollar shortfall according to this old article from December 2013!
This is only a small part of a MASSIVE unfunded federal pension liability that as of December 2013 was more than $150 billion!
That’s $150,000,000,000.00!
Where do you think the money will come from to cover those unfunded liabilities?
Surprise, surprise! Can you say taxes! Why should my a$$, or for that matter, your a$$ cover somebody else’s pension shortfall?
Oops, sorry ice! I was so shaken and traumatized by those massive numbers that I forgot to post my link:
ht tp://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/canada-posts-6-5-billion-shortfall-just-a-fraction-of-more-than-150-billion-in-unfunded-federal-pension-liabilities
Hmmm, perhaps someone at Canada Post or from within Government should apologize to me for creating a situation that is causing me stress! Man, I need a hug!
Actually theft from these mailboxes is a real and serious concern. Regardless of your personal bias.
Actually Hart Guy , the Can Post Pension Plan is in fine shape. With assets over 23.1 billion. The plan earned a rate of return of 7.9% in 2016, compared to its bench mark return of 6.7%. Can Post now delivers 2 out of 3 packages sold on the internet and is a profitable Crown Corporation. In 2014 they had 2 days where they processed over a million pieces of mail, 2016 they had over 30.
Editor’s note:
This comment has been edited to remove a personal attack
Blah, blah, blah! So what!
From December, 2013:
The unfunded pension liability has grown to $151 billion today from about $127 billion in 2004. Combined with the “other employee and veteran future benefits,” the total liability has grown from $167 billion in 2004 to today’s $219 billion.
The federal government’s pension plight is getting worse due to continually low interest rates and smaller returns on pension funds.
Ottawa currently has a number of defined-benefit pension plans, which are indexed to inflation, covering almost all employees in the public service and public sector corporations.
The pension difficulties facing Canada Post are symptomatic of problems for other Crown corporations and across government, said Ted Mallett, vice-president and chief economist of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.
“Something is going to break,” Mallett said Friday.
f-150So, thanks for the plug for Canada Post! I’m sure that you feel great putting forth the value of their assets and their rate of return. But you left out an important number!
what is their current unfunded pension liability?
It’s likely a very big number, after all it was $6.5 BILLION only 3.5 years ago!
So, how much more is it today?
Public-sector packages simply unaffordable
Gwyn Morgan, Special to The Globe and Mail
Published Sunday, Jan. 19, 2014 8:37PM EST
an excerpt:
The Canadian Federation of Independent Business estimates that “the unfunded shortfall for public pension plans across the country likely exceeds $300-billion … or $9,000 for every man, woman and child in this country.” Despite their staggering size, these taxpayer liabilities rarely make headlines. That’s why the CFIB calls them “Canada’s hidden unfunded public sector pension liabilities.”
But these pension problems won’t go unnoticed much longer. As increasing numbers of civil servants retire, billions of dollars must be added to government budgets to pay for their pensions. And lower birth rates combined with baby boomers leaving the work force mean that those pension costs will fall upon the shoulders of a decreasing number of working Canadians. Most of those saddled with that $300-billion public-service pension liability are private-sector workers, two-thirds of whom don’t have any kind employer pension plan.
The fact that civil servants enjoy vastly more generous retirement benefits than the taxpayers who pay for them is already fomenting rising resentment. Such pension provisions are a legacy of monopolistic public-sector unions extracting ever-more extravagant benefits from strike-fearing governments.
Scary stuff! These are not right wing extremist views, this is the reality that we are facing!
F-150, where do you think the Government will get the funds it needs to prop up these pensions? Would you like them to come to your house to pick some cash off of your money tree in the back yard? Perhaps you can let them have a ride on your pink Unicorn while they are there!
ht tps://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/rob-commentary/public-sector-packages-simply-unaffordable/article16402741/
Hart Guy- I know you do not like Unions but individuals that think like you are the reason they came about.
oldman 1, years ago Unions served a purpose, nowadays not so much!
I have an issue with how Big Labour, particularly in the Public Sector has held the population at large ransom for their never ending demands.
I also have an issue with Governments of all levels that didn’t have the balls to stand up to Big Labour in defence of the tax payer.
As noted in my linked excerpt above regarding overly generous public sector pensions “Such pension provisions are a legacy of monopolistic public-sector unions extracting ever-more extravagant benefits from strike-fearing governments.”
Take our local municipal workers as an example. We have one of the highest paid municipal workforces in the province. Our municipal workers received a raise each and every year for something like 29 years in a row!
It didn’t matter if the economy was doing well or if things were not doing well, we were held hostage to a pay increase for our Unionized workforce, a pay increase that simply got added to our taxes, taxes that some struggle to afford each year!
This is what happens when you have greedy Union leadership threatening job action and Municipal Government without the gonads to stand up to them. At what point does Government show leadership and stand up for the taxpayers by saying to Big Labour “enough is enough”?
Take a look at the salaries paid to our municipal workforce, and check out the Regional District salaries while you are at it! Tack on the benefits and the pensions and you can clearly see that taxpayers are at a severe disadvantage when it comes to expecting our Municipal Government to adequately represent the interests of tax payers!
oldman 1, you really should take your Union blinders off for a moment and read this article about our unfunded public sector pension liabilities. It’s a report well worth reading.
I especially note the following excerpt:
“Governments to date have placed far too much reliance on solving their pension UFL problems through the revenue route, asking taxpayers to kick in extra to fund shortfalls. Public sector pensions are looking like they are structurally unaffordable, sending tax costs higher, adding to public employees already high pension contribution obligations, or forcing governments to divert resources away from public services toward paying for retired employees. With public sector earners collecting 8-17% more in wages per year than private sector earners in the same kinds of jobs9, and pension entitlements that generously lever off those earnings past retirement, it is time to deal with the cost side of the pension ledger.”
Interesting Oldman 1, wouldn’t you agree!
So, in order to cover any unfunded liabilities, should the taxpayer pick up the tab in higher taxes, or should the taxpayer pick up the tab with reduced public services?
Or, how about instead we actually stop asking either question of the taxpayer and we leave them alone for a change?
ht tps://www.cfib-fcei.ca/cfib-documents/rr3262.pdf
Parcels are not delivered door-to-door except for their courier service which is not door-to-door but delivered by a postal van. People are realizing brokers make online shopping prohibitive and going postal, but that doesn’t change the door-to-door equation
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