It’s nice to see that we no longer trust privatization as a the magic wand that solves public institution problems.
That said I think the 52% support for non-union gig work in Canada Post is indicative of the mindset that needs shifting if Canada is to change course in a way that makes most people better off long term.
Source: https://angusreid.org/canada-post-privatization-strike-service-disruption-vote-union/
Well that’s the thing, in some places snail mail is fast. UK for instance has places with delivery twice a day, meaning you can “courier” items across a city same day. The post offices in Canada turned to crap as soon as they started hacking the service down.
Our neighbourhood changed to community mailbox, the CP truck would pass my house and drop a notice “sorry we missed you” into the community mailbox because the package wouldn’t fit in the mailbox. And then leave and pass my house again. Not really a mail delivery service more of a notification for pickup service.
Canada is 9,984,670sq km with a population density of 4.5/sq km. That’s ~2.2m routes to see all Canadians 5-times a week.
The UK is 244,376sq km with a population density of 286/sq km. If there was universal coverage that’d be about ~1000 delivery-person-routes per day. So delivering a route is orders of magnitude easier, faster, and simpler for the workers at the Royal Mail.
If the UK only had once a day delivery they’d be 0.045% as efficient as thier Canadian counterparts.
EVEN WITH twice daily delivery the Royal Mail has less than 1% the efficiency of CUPW workers.
With that said, both face external (couriers) and internal (government) pressure to profit.
Ask yourself this: as a service to citizens of both countries, what other public services have to make a profit? National Defence? National Healthcare? National Police?
None do because privateers have already raped and pillaged those services for maximum profit as suppliers. So they don’t get lobbied the same - or even compared.
No, just Postal services with their well developed contact with the communities they serve are singled out to be profit centers for cash hungry politicians.
WTF?? What mail do you guys get that you need it delivered twice a day???
I might get something “important” (i.e. from the government) maybe a few times a month. Bills are nearly all electronic. A few packages are delivered by Canada Post, but none are urgent enough to need even a daily delivery service.
Of course, I’m only speaking for myself. Maybe there are people who still get a ton of mail, but I can’t imagine it’s the majority.
My bad, the second delivery became a cleanup delivery to deliver what they forgot or didn’t get in in the morning.
True actual multi delivery stopped in the 50s.
The UK policy is six days a week and as expedient as possible. I’m sure that is changing slowly