by Howard MoscoeLast year Canada Post announced that it will be discontinuing door to door mail service, and it has been true to its word. Within the next two weeks, the conversion to community mail boxes will begin at 18 or 19 locations across the country with door to door service withdrawn from some 26,000 homes. In Ontario, Oakville will be the first city hit. The communities affected so far, have been targeted as easier hits because some of the population in these locations have already been serviced by community mail boxes. The date when we will lose our door to door service in Downsview has not yet been determined, but it will be gone by 2019. My letter carrier suggested that it will likely be out of service within about two years. The post office has whined about operating losses as the reason for cutting service and along with that, the need to cut 8,000 jobs. That now rings hollow because in the second quarter of 2014 Canada Post made a net profit of $67 million, up from a loss of $50 million the year before. Last month, I walked over to the letter box at the corner of Catford Rd., and Derrydown Rd., to post a letter. The box was gone. I then hoofed it over to the next closest letter box to my house, on Hucknall Rd., near Madron Cres., and that box was also missing. It would appear that not only is Canada Post cutting back on door to door delivery of mail, they are also cutting back on mail box locations. Those two boxes have been in place for some 50 years. So now that I’m a senior, I can not walk to post a letter, but must drive. What about those seniors who can’t drive?I contacted Canada Post to ask about other mail boxes that have been taken out of service in Downsview. John Hamilton, a spokesman for Canada Post said that the organization doesn't keep any data on specific communities.“Any mail induction point has to be visited and cleared five days a week,” Hamilton said. “While the number of street letter boxes has remained relatively constant we have moved or removed some that were being used infrequently.” He then went on about how Canada Post was losing money and the need for efficiencies to be created at the local level. Here is what I don’t understand. If each of the new community mail boxes has a slot that will accept outgoing mail, one wonders why they couldn’t simply wait until the community mailboxes were installed before they began to pull existing letter boxes out of service? If you have noticed a letter box missing in your area, email me the location. (hmoscoe@gmail.com). Hamilton said that anyone who thinks Canada Post has overlooked important information when making the decision to remove the mailboxes can call customer service at 1-866-607-6301 and they will look into it.If you decide to complain, be prepared to wait a long time on the telephone and push a lot of buttons to get to talk to a real person. Be persistent, and if you are successful in getting a box put back in our neighbourhood, let us know so we can celebrate your success. The Canada Post Corporation Act in 1981, which separated the postal service from the Canadian Government, was supposed to guarantee basic postal service to every Canadian wherever they might live. The problem is that it failed to clearly define what basic meant.

by Howard Moscoe You’ve just cleaned out your closets and have a lot of good used clothing to give away. There is a clothing drop box at the corner of the plaza nearby so you haul it all there and drop it into the box. It kind of makes you feel warm and fuzzy because your used clothing donation has gone to help a charity to help others. I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but many of these boxes are not run by charitable organizations. One of the most common boxes in Downsview is a $6 Million a year business which has little, if any, charitable component. In fact, many boxes in Toronto are operated by contractors who pay the charities listed for the use of their name. You can find the names of some pretty exotic charities on clothing drop boxes.Here’s how it works. The company assigns an area to a contractor. The Downsview contractor then drops as many boxes as he can wherever he can. You will often find the boxes at the edge of shopping plazas or on city property near the road allowance. The plaza owner doesn’t object because, after all, it is a ‘charity’ box and besides, most property owners aren’t quite sure where their property ends and city property begins. The boxes are often on the property line. In 2006, I had Toronto city Council pass a bylaw prohibiting the location of these boxes on city Property. It did little good because enforcement of the bylaw is almost non-existent. The used clothing is taken to a depot where it is sorted by low wage workers into piles. The best clothing is sold to second hand clothing stores. Much of it shipped to third world countries where it is sold for profit. A group of Ryerson Journalism Students once followed a T-shirt they “donated” in one of these boxes to Guatemala where it was sold in an open air market. Some of these business hides behind charities that lend them their names in exchange for a small monthly or yearly donation. One set of clothing boxes displayed pictures of missing children listed as being owned by a ‘charity’ called “The garden of Lost Children.” I tracked it down to one lady in rural Nova Scotia who said she was paid $500 a year for the use of her charity’s name. It was so egregious that the Attorney General of Ontario ordered their name off the boxes. As chair of Licensing, I made two attempts to regulate the industry. The first bylaw the city passed in 2007 was completely unenforceable. I managed to get the city to re-write the bylaw three years ago before I retired. The bylaw is simple. Every box must have a permit. To obtain a permit for a location the operator must have the written permission of the owner, must be free of graffiti, and the operator must keep the area around the box clean and tidy. Sounds easy, but the city has still not put an effective enforcement mechanism in place. I have been trying to get rid of one such illegal box for ten years. Every time the contractor has been asked to move it, he simply lifts it up and drops it on another property. I intend to harass city council until they do something to actually enforce this bylaw. When donating your used clothes, be sure to look for a city of Toronto license sticker on a box. Every legitimate box must be licensed and If there is no city sticker prominently displayed on the box it is an illegal box. Do not leave your clothing. Take it to one of the charities that operate thrift stores.