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Private sector a much better option

Dear Editor,

If the Canada Postal Service Union is hoping for the public to support them in their quest for more wages and benefits they are going about it in an odd fashion.

In the past, whenever I had parcel deliveries delivered by Canada Post, they would deliver the package to my apartment door on the second floor, and yes we do have an operating elevator. Except for the odd occasion when they would just leave a notice for me to pick up the package downtown the next day, after they failed to even pick up the lobby phone to inform me that they had arrived.

Friday afternoon, Dec. 7, I had to do some shopping, and did not know when my parcel would arrive, or indeed did not know what day to expect it, as the media kept telling us there was a huge backlog of parcels awaiting sorting because of the rotating strikes before they were ordered back to work.

My wife suffers from pulmonary fibrosis, which can leave her very fatigued at times due to oxygen deprivation. She is also a diabetic, and suffers from early dementia.

When she was home alone, the phone did ring, and it was an employee of Canada Post on the other end of the line.

He claimed he had a parcel for us in the lobby. My wife asked him if he could bring it up to our door on the second floor, and he said no, I cannot do that, you must come down here. I don’t know if this is a new policy by management, or just sour grapes from the union for being ordered back to work.

At any rate, my wife who is now in her early 80s, went down to retrieve this parcel. When she got off the elevator, at the lobby, and the postal employee saw who had arrived to pick up the parcel, he may have had a twinge of regret at telling her to pick it up on her own, because he then offered to place the box into the elevator, then left her on her own.

My wife had to get off at the second floor, and then push the box down the hall with her feet, sliding it along the carpeted floor to our door, because she could not lift the box on her own.

Ironically enough, this box being pushed down the hall by my wife, who as I said, suffers from a debilitating terminal lung disease, contained an oxygen generating unit to hopefully help her when her oxygen levels decrease, which happens when she is exerting herself.

In the past my wife always wanted to tip any delivery person who came to our door, even unionized ones that make good money and have more paid days off than most people ever do. Of course that will now come to an abrupt end after this episode.

I don’t know why so many companies still utilize Canada Post to deliver parcels, as the service is always better with UPS, Purolator, or Fed Ex, at least in my experience, and Fed Ex would usually refuse any tip on top of the great service.

I suppose it is because the federal government probably subsidizes, with taxpayers funds, this operation to make it cheaper to use by the shippers that do utilize it, and to undercut the competition. The government interfering with the free market system again, much like the LCBO here in Ontario.

If that is the case, we are being forced to subsidize an operation to compete with the private sector, that usually gives us much better service.

Only in Canada, of that I am almost certain.

Russ Horner

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