Frozen out
Canada Post replacing 28K shoddy mailbox locks in N.L.
Canada Post is refusing to say how much it will cost to change the locks on 28,000 community mailboxes across Newfoundland and Labrador because they freeze in the winter and stop working.
This week, people started getting letters from Canada Post that their locks were being changed, and the new ones would be much less likely to freeze up in the winter.
Canada Post spokesman Jon Hamilton was guarded when he spoke to The Telegram, refusing to name the private contractor that will be replacing the locks.
Hamilton also wouldn’t say whether the locks on the community mailboxes would be changed in any other provinces.
“We are looking at where else we may need to ensure we have new locks in,” he said.
“We’re working on that rollout.”
If you lose your keys, and Canada Post has to change the locks and issue you a new set, it comes at a cost of $29. For 28,000 locks that would come to around $812,000, although it’s possible Canada Post is getting some discount based on the scale of the project.
Mike McDonald, the Newfoundland and Nova Scotia representative for the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) said that the union didn’t get any heads-up about the lock changes.
But he said that mail carriers definitely know about the problems with locks freezing.
“We are looking at where else we may need to ensure we have new locks in.”
Canada Post spokesman Jon Hamilton
In some cases, there are reports of keys breaking off in the cold, and locks getting jammed.
“The locks are inferior to the ones that were already there on the old boxes,” he said.
“When they were doing the changeover, one guy would actually bring a blowtorch with him, and he would end up staying there for 10-15 minutes helping other people that saw him over there with a blowtorch.” Hamilton said they got about 65,000 calls last winter related to problems with the locks and keys of the mailboxes.