Neighbourhood loses delivery of mail due to carrier injury
Residents of Gallagher’s Canyon told some of their mailboxes are too low
Letter delivery to dozens of Gallagher’s Canyon residents has been suspended because Canada Post says their mailboxes are too low.
A letter carrier suffered an injury bending over to put mail into the boxes, which range from 10 centimetres to 79 centimetres off the ground, Canada Post has advised residents of the golf resort community in southeast Kelowna.
“It bugs me that they’d just cut us off like this without any prior notice,” resident Tom Wilde said Thursday. “First of all, you think, if they can’t bend over a little, maybe they shouldn’t be a letter carrier.
“But anyway, these boxes have been like this for about 30 years,” Wilde said. “If it really is a problem all of a sudden, you’d think Canada Post would at least give us a little bit of time to fix the situation before they just stop delivering mail.”
Canada Post says the union that represents letter carriers complained about the height of the mailboxes and the decision was made to suspend delivery.
“Letter carriers have brought this issue to our attention, and together with the local health and safety committee we have visited the site to assess its compliance with our safety standards. The decision was made to temporarily suspend delivery,” Canada Post spokesperson Hayley Magermans wrote in an email.
“As an employer, we have the responsibility to ensure that our employees’ workplace is safe,” Magermans wrote.
The letter carrier that’s new to the Gallagher’s Canyon route was injured bending down to put mail in the boxes, Gallagher’s Canyon property manager Doug Herron says.
“As the current letter carrier is taller than the previous carrier, this is an issue as bending down to deposit the mail is too great a hardship and has resulted in an injury,” Herron wrote to residents.
At the mail kiosk, the large package boxes are 10 centimetres off the ground.
But those are opened by the letter carrier using a larger panel that stretches up about 79 centimetres from ground level. Within those larger panels are 54 individual mailboxes.
The sudden suspension of service to all of those box holders is particularly baffling, Wilde says, since Canada Post installed extra security on all the mailboxes, including the ones now said to be too low, just last November after a spate of mail thefts.
“If there was a problem with the height, that seems like it would have been the time to fix the situation,” he said.
For now, those Gallagher’s Canyon residents who aren’t receiving mail will have to retrieve it from the Canada Post depot in downtown Kelowna, a distance of 14 kilometres. For those not willing to make the long drive every day, the village association will pick up their mail once a week.