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Rossland spared from the axe

Postal service cuts that have sliced into communities across the nation will not be slashing into the services of Rossland.
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Postal service cuts that have sliced into communities across the nation will not be slashing into the services of Rossland.

A spokesperson with Canada Post confirmed the city will be spared any of the country-wide changes it has made to the way the nation’s mail is handled.

Anick Losier said Rossland, although holding city status, is served by post office boxes—all of which are not affected by the national postal service’s Action Plan.

She also said there were no immediate planned cuts to the staffing levels in the Rossland Post Office, but hinted that staffing could eventually be reduced.

“Our employees enjoy job security and we intend to respect all clauses of our contract,” said Losier. “Any staffing reduction is planned to be done via attrition.”

Over the next five years, Canada Post will transition the one third of the nation’s addresses currently served by door-to-door delivery to community mailboxes.

‘To my knowledge, there are no specific changes in (Rossland) but we continually review our retail network to ensure that it serves the needs of the communities we serve,” she said.

The city’s member of Parliament, Alex Atamanenko, has spoken out recently about the cuts to postal service in the largely rural B.C. Southern Interior riding. He noted the cut to Saturday service in Greenwood as an example of the lack of sensitivity to the needs of Kootenay-Boundary communities.

“I don’t think they’re really doing any consultation with the people in the area,” he said. “They’re trying to cut back. They’re trying to cut costs.”

The other aspect is, if Canada Post cuts service it cuts hours. So either they lay off someone or someone’s making less money and there’s less money in the community, Atamanenko noted.

“They want to cut costs and unfortunately what happens, is these effects are felt a lot more in our small communities,” he said.