A Canada Post vehicle travels on Pandora Street after leaving the Woodland Drive depot in Vancouver, on April 14, 2022. Canada Post has suspended mail delivery to a two-block stretch of East Hastings in the Downtown Eastside after safety concerns were raised by employees.DARRYL DYCK/The Globe and Mail
For the past four weeks, Vancouver’s Overdose Prevention Society has had to dispatch one of its staff on a half-hour round trip by bus to a Canada Post office or enlist another non-profit working in the city’s Downtown Eastside to pick up its mail.
The documents – bills, as well as correspondence with various provincial agencies – are essential to the running of the grassroots supervised drug consumption site, says its executive director Sarah Blyth, who helped start the operation six years ago inside a makeshift tent off a nearby alley before it moved to its current storefront location.
Ms. Blyth, a former Vancouver Park Board commissioner, said Canada Post’s current service blackout for the block of her site and the one next to it is an inconvenience to herself and her team. But it is seriously damaging the quality of life for the hundreds of the area’s vulnerable residents crammed into small dorm-style apartments with shared washrooms on East Hastings Street.
Canada Post temporarily suspended service in 2020 over concerns that postal workers could contract COVID-19 in the neighbourhood where hundreds of people spend lots of time outside because of their cramped living quarters or not having a roof to sleep under.
But, this time, the federal Crown corporation’s rationale for its latest disruption is different: It is concerned about the safety of its employees among the crowds on these two blocks.
Canada Post deliveries paused in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside over safety concerns
Canada Post declined an interview request Thursday, instead sending a statement saying it is working to find a long-term solution as quickly as possible after suspending deliveries on March 23. The statement says Canada Post is responsible for making sure its delivery people, who visit hundreds of addresses every day, can do their jobs safely.
“We take the temporary suspension of mail delivery and the well-being of our employees very seriously,” spokesperson Valérie Chartrand said in the statement. “We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience and thank them for their patience and understanding.”
The Canadian Union of Postal Workers also declined a request for an interview Thursday.
Jan Simpson, CUPW national president, sent a brief statement noting his members take pride in delivering the mail to all Canadians, “but it cannot be at the expense of worker health and safety.”
Mayor Kennedy Stewart said, in a brief statement e-mailed Thursday, that the city is working with the federal agency to resume service.
Canada’s postal agency has suspended service to certain areas throughout the pandemic owing to concerns over virus transmission. The Downtown Eastside had months-long disruption in 2020, and tenants of 10 Toronto high-rises in three neighbourhoods were in an uproar over a sudden stoppage of deliveries to thousands of residents, many of whom were new immigrants and racialized people.
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Ms. Blyth said lots of the people now affected are seniors with mobility issues and most are on extremely tight budgets – often drawing from the social assistance or other benefit cheques usually mailed to them. A Globe and Mail investigation into the drug poisoning crisis in the neighbourhood found more than 6,000 people relied on welfare in the Downtown Eastside.
“They barely have money to live let alone bus fare to go and get their mail,” said Ms. Blyth who, until recently, lived in an apartment in one of the two affected blocks.
Ms. Blyth said she doesn’t want to discount the fears postal workers may have about serving the two blocks, but said her neighbours are usually happy to get the mail and that she hasn’t heard of any incidents involving mail carriers in an area she regards as generally safe.
She added that she and others are disappointed that Canada Post didn’t drop the mail at another post office just down the street from the restricted area, which would mean those retrieving mail would not have to take a bus or walk half an hour.
“If they feel uncomfortable let’s find a solution that isn’t hard on people,” Ms. Blyth said.
With a report from The Canadian Press
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