Re: [OT] Time to close down the Post Office?

Rhino <no_offline_contact@example.com> wrote:

We're nearly three weeks into a postal strike here in Canada. Lorne
Gunter makes the point that almost no one is affected by the strike so
maybe it's time to think about closing the Post Office altogether.

Oh, that's what's going on. I kept getting messages that the United
States Postal Service wasn't accepting certain types of mail for Canada.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fZh5Fp093U [5 minutes]

I can't argue that he's wrong. I think we've been trending this way for
a long time. Many years ago, the government, presumably in an attempt to
placate the postal unions, made it law that ONLY the Post Office could
carry letters and they also enacted in law that for package delivery,
couriers had to charge at least 3 times what Canada Post charged.

Wow. The United States postal monopoly is for First-Class Mail only. The
post office wasn't even delivering parcel post till AFTER UPS was
created, which was founded by former postal executives frustrated that
they couldn't convince the Post Office Department to deliver parcels.

I'm not sure if those laws are in effect but if they were eliminated,
the many courier companies could easily compete with Canada Post WITHOUT
losing hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars every year to make up
the shortfall at Canada Post.

Ouch

. . .