Hartington Post Office Mess Reveals Canada Post Rural Fault Lines

Jeff Green | Aug 28, 2024

Canada Post is in big trouble. At least that is what the corporation is telling Canadians. In releasing its 2023 annual report this past June, the corporation announced an annual pre-tax loss of $748 million, and said it must change its delivery model in order to survive.

Two issues were cited as causing historically significant annual losses in the post-pandemic era.

First, the decrease in letter mail, from over 5 billion letters per year in 2006, to 2 billion in recent years, and falling. Second, the increase in parcel delivery that offset the cut in letter mail, has slowed as “low cost” competitors have cut into the market.

The annual report pointed out that Canada Post is committed to “the important role it continues to play in connecting all Canadians – in urban, rural and remote communities.”

Some of the issues underlying the stress on the postal system have been playing out in our rural postal service in recent years. The response by Canada Post has been to patch things up as best it can without investing significant resources.

Many smaller post offices have closed in recent years.  And this has become even more clear with what is initially being called a temporary closure of the Hartington and Ardoch post offices due to a lack of physical space. 

The Ardoch Post Office is the last one remaining in North Frontenac, following the closing of both the Ompah and Plevna outlets over the past decade. It closed because it was located in a building that was owned by the Canada Post contracted employee who ran it, and he decided to retire, as people do.

So, instead of just replacing an employee, Canada Post needs to find someone willing to rent to them, on their terms. This will require resources for them to conduct a search, and they need to be willing to pay a reasonable amount of money for rent when they find a location. In previous cases, both of these have been lacking.

In May of 2023 the Canada Post location in Mberly, in the building that houses the Fall River Cafe, closed due to landlord-tenant issues after a change in ownership at the Cafe.. The Maberly service was “temporarily” transferred to Sharbot Lake. This June, with no more notice than a sheet of paper posted on the door of the Sharbot Lake Post office, the formal, and final, closing of the Maberly Post Office was confirmed.

The Ardoch Post Office could well be facing the same fate in the coming months.

A couple of weeks ago, a letter appeared on the door of the Hartington Post Office, announcing a temporary closure as of September 1st, due to landlord-tenant issues again. Aside from this being incredibly bad luck for the post office manager in Hartington, Kim Bates, who managed to secure the post after losing the same job when the Maberly Post Office was placed in limbo just 16 months ago. The Hartington closure has also highlighted the lack of physical resources for the postal service in South and Central Frontenac.

Anyone who has stopped in at the Sharbot Lake, Verona, or Sydenham post offices in recent years, will be aware that staff in those locations are trying to manage a large amount of parcels in  locations that are too small. They were set up to handle and sort letter mail, and do not have the necessary warehouse space to handle the influx of parcels from Amazon, Best Buy, etc. 

At peak times of the week, boxes are piled everywhere, as workers struggle to find them and pass them out to customers.

Canada Post has acknowledged this reality, but it is now leading to a reality that is increasingly bizarre.

In fact, ever since the Harrowsmith Post Office closed in 2012, much to the continuing dismay of 1200 homeowners in the Harrowsmith postal district, parcels that cannot be delivered in Harrowsmith are picked up in Verona, where Harrowsmith mail is sorted. Harrowsmith residents have been driving past the Hartington Post Office on their way to Verona whenever they have had a parcel to pick up.

With the closing of the Hartington Post Office, the 500 Hartington Households will not be able to go a short distance north to Verona to pick up mail, because there is not more room in Verona. They will need to head south, and east, past the Sydenham Post Office, which is also already overwhelmed with its own Sydenham parcels, to the east end of Rutledge and then south to Inverary, where a new post office was set up 8 or 9 years ago.  This new post office is the only one in Frontenac County that includes a large, open warehouse space large enough to handle the extra numbers of parcels.

Canada Post says it will set up temporary boxes in Hartington to lessen the need to go to Inverary for Hartington customers, and is looking for a new location in Hartington.

But it is clear that what is required is an investment in a larger space to serve residents living in the Road 38 corridor. It could be in Harrowsmith or Verona, and it would not necessarily make everyone happy, depending on where it is located. 

But money needs to be invested in the region in order for Canada Post to have any chance of playing a major role in servicing the region, which is growing, going forward. Otherwise the network of couriers that has already spread throughout the region, will take all the parcel business.  This will result in added costs in the long run, when rural addresses trigger added delivery costs from across the e-retail spectrum. And once the parcel business is gone, Canada Post will not be able to maintain rural, or urban, delivery at all.

The implications for communities in places like Frontenac County will be dire, especially for seniors and anyone who does not have a vehicle on the road.

Canada Post invested in Inverary, which serves over 3000 households in growing communities along Perth Road and Battersea Road.

If Canada Post intends to serve about 10,000 other households along Road 38 and Road 509/506, they will need to invest in physical resources focused on a couple of locations along that 100+ kilometre stretch of road.

And given the scenario captured in their annual report this year, Canada Post needs to make this happen quickly, before they lose all credibility with customers.

Starting next week, Hartington residents heading south on Road 38 to get parcels in Inverary, will pass Harrowsmith residents heading north on 38 to Verona, an illustration of what has gone wrong.