OTTAWA — The federal government last week announced an indefinite end to rural postal closings and conversions.
“As long as this government is in power, no rural or small-town post office will close,” said David Dingwall, minister responsible for Canada Post.
He said there is no plan to reopen any of the almost 1,500 rural post offices that have been closed or converted to private businesses since 1987.
“The omelette has been broken,” he told reporters outside the House of Commons Feb. 17. The Reform Party, angry over what they considered Liberal grandstanding, refused to let him announce it in the House. “I don’t think we can go back and fix those situations.”
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The minister said the announcement will preserve the remaining 4,000 rural post offices, several hundred of which were under threat of closure.
Election promise
The Liberal government announcement, promised during the election, was a reversal of a six-year-old Canada Post policy, supported by the previous Conservative government, to consider closing or converting any rural post office in which a postmaster vacancy was created.
Dingwall said it reflected a government commitment to rural Canada and rural services. He promised that Canadian flags will fly in front of every post office, a practice which sometimes had lapsed under the Conservatives.
The announcement immediately drew qualified praise from opposition MPs and from Rural Dignity, the tenacious lobby formed seven years ago to fight for preservation of rural services.
“I’m delighted with the decision,” said Rural Dignity co-ordinator Cynthia Patterson. “It is a tremendous step.”
Swift Current-Maple Creek Reform MP Lee Morrison said: “It’s going to take a lot of heat off all rural MPs in Saskatchewan. The Reform Party is all for cutting costs but the cost of maintaining rural post offices is such a pittance that I’d have to say the government is doing the right thing.”
Added Battlefords-Meadow Lake New Democrat MP Len Taylor: “This is definitely a step in the right direction.”
However, it will not entirely end the heat on the government over the rural postal issue.
Patterson said she wants to see a Canada Post corporate plan that commits itself to putting resources into rural Canada. And she wants to see some closed post offices reopened if the building is still there.
Both Patterson and Taylor said they will pressure Dingwall to get rid of some senior Canada Post officials whom they consider responsible for the closure policy.
“From the lowest local level, where there was bullying and blackmail, to the top, there was no respect shown for rural people,” said the Rural Dignity leader. “I don’t think you get a different attitude just because there is a different policy.”
Taylor said it is unrealistic to think bureaucrats who devised, defended and carried out the old policy will become defenders of the new.
Dingwall disagreed.
He said Canada Post management had been helpful and “constructive” when he was considering what to do. “They support it.”
