February 5, 2003
(Letter sent to The Digby Courier)
Dear Editor:
I would like an opportunity to respond to the December 18th letter by L. A. Durling, "Not keeping up with pony express".
The facts in the letter are wrong in many instances. First of all, Canada Post became a Crown Corporation in 1981, not in the 70's, and postal rates did not increase significantly until 1980 and they did so because they did not reflect the actual cost of providing the service.
Service standards for lettermail in Canada were established in 1985 following the Marchment Commission report. The report, which surveyed Canadians from coast to coast to coast, recommended that Canada Post adopt service standards that were based on reliability and not speed. The recommendation that Canada Post adopted was two-business days for local mail, three-business days for regional mail and four-business days for national mail.
Canada Post was the first postal administration in the world to have its service performance measured by an independent auditor and the results made public. Today lettermail in Canada is reaching its destination against standard 97 per cent of the time. In order to achieve that level of performance, some 80 per cent of that mail is getting delivered one day ahead of standard.
As Canadians we don't pay to have mail delivered. Our system is a user-pay system; therefore the price of a postage stamp is the cost of sending mail in Canada. It is not a tax. In fact we enjoy one of the lowest stamp prices in the industrialized world. The fact that taxes are due on postage stamps is no different than taxes that are due on any other transaction performed in Canada.
The statement that "mail for anywhere in Canada should be in the system no later than December 11" to be delivered in time for Christmas, is another error in fact. Our regular two, three and four-day standards apply right up to Christmas. What we do offer late Christmas mailers is Xpresspost and Priority Courier to ensure their mail gets delivered on time for the holidays.
I trust this clarifies the inaccuracies in the L. A. Durling letter.
Sincerely,
John Caines
Manager, National Media Relations
Ottawa (613) 734-7675
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