Breaking down Canada Post's plan to end door-to-door mail delivery

Canada Post is changing the way it delivers mail across the GTA. Here's what you need to know. As part of our transformation plan, community mailboxes are kind of coming to the four million addresses that still receive mail door-to-door. The rollout will happen nationwide, but here in the GTA, it'll start with around 18,000 North Etobicoke addresses, those with M9V and M9W postal codes on November 16th. Then next year, some areas in Ajax, Brampton and Mississauga will follow suit. Denser neighbourhoods like downtown Toronto and some parts of North York will be the very last to make the switch, converting by 2031. I think folks have seen the financial struggles that we've been in, and I think people recognise that they shop and mail letters less, they shop differently, they shop online, there's more parcels. So I think that the postal system as a whole needs to change and evolve. Meaning, once your neighbourhood is converted, you may have to walk up to 250 metres to pick up your mail, which can be an issue for more vulnerable senior residents or those with disabilities. For people with disabilities, people with balance issues, people with chronic fatigue problems, these are just more barriers and more risks. Disability advocates have questions about the winter months when snow and ice can present And even more problems. One of them is going to be what steps they're going to take to make sure that the path to the mailbox is actually accessible. Canada Post does offer a delivery accommodation program, but advocates say that accommodation comes with a serious catch. First, you've got to make your case and get the bureaucracy to agree to that. That's yet another bureaucratic barrier amongst the many that we face. Second, those deliveries at home, Only once a week, not once a day over the Monday to Friday period. So it's substantially inferior service. But Canada Post says applying is straightforward and insists the program has already worked for thousands of Canadians for decades. Tyler Cheese, CBC News, Toronto.