By David F. Rooney
Canada Post is opening a new postal outlet in town inside the newly renovated Peoples Drug Mart store at Alpine Plaza.
The new postal outlet offers all standard Canada Post products in addition to extended business hours.
“We’re expanding our network to provide more access points to Canadians and to the people in Revelstoke,” Anick Losier of Canada Post said Thursday morning, June 19.
“Our process for arriving to today’s announcement is based on business and market analyses conducted over the past year to assess the possibility of adding more postal services in the community. We consult with our local union and then search for possible host businesses.”
She said that with the rise of online shopping, “we work to add postal counters — like the one at the Peoples Drug Mart — to add convenience with extended hours and parking without incurring all the capital costs.”
The new postal outlet offers parcel pickup, shipping, stamps, post office boxes, money orders, government forms including Revenue Canada and Passport Canada, and debit/credit card payments. Services will be available seven days a week – Monday to Saturday from 9 am to 6 pm and Sunday from 11 am to 4 pm.
However, at least one person thinks this is the thin edge of a wedge that may eventually allow Canada Post to not replace workers and — eventually shot down the main post office.
While The Revelstoke Current does not — as a policy — print anonymous letters I made an exception for a letter popped in my mailbox this morning.
Whoever wrote the letter — and I suspect it may have been a postal worker — said Canada Post’s addition of small, retail business-based outlets allows it “to not replace workers who retire or move.”
“In the past two years they have not replaced one employee in Revelstoke,” the letter said.
It also noted that if letter writers want their locally addressed mail to be handled locally — meaning they don’t want it to be shipped to Richmond for sorting and transport back to Revelstoke for eventual delivery — they should bring it into the main post office and physically hand it to one of the inside postal workers at the counter. Every piece of mail dropped into a red mail box is sent out of town for sorting and delivery.
There have been claims that pricing for Canada Post products and services would be higher at retail outlets. Those are absolutely untrue, Canada Post said in a separate statement:
“An email containing misinformation regarding discrepancies in pricing between corporate Canada Post outlets and private postal outlets is currently circulating on the internet. This email is incorrect. Our customer’s experience should be the same no matter where he or she chooses to shop.
“All of our 6,000 automated post offices, corporate or dealer use the same Retail point-of-sale system software and corporate rating engine. Therefore they all charge the same rate for the same identical service.
“Dealers cannot charge a higher rate for a postal service, as the system will not permit it and contractually they would be in default.”
Canada Post spokesman Phil Legault said “all Canada Post products, costs and rates, are set in the computerized system to be same across the country, regardless if it’s a franchise postal outlet or post office. Simply put – prices are identical.”
