Postal truck (handout from Canada Post )
At the Toronto Dental Care clinic in Scarborough, the mail is vital: It's used to pay the bills, to process insurance payments and to receive test and biopsy results for patients. Office manager Debbie Rabinovich estimates the business takes in between 30 and 40 pieces of post a day.
So imagine her surprise when she didn't get a single visit from the mail carrier for an entire week.
And the clinic isn't alone: the local member of Parliament said her office has been fielding a flood of complaints on the issue, but that Canada Post has offered scant reply to her requests for help.
Ms. Rabinovich's problem started last week. The mail came as usual on Monday, but didn't show up for a week after that. She said postal employees told her one mailman had been reassigned to another job and his route split between several carriers.
"They told us, 'Don't count on getting mail every day,' " she said. "If this is how it's going to go, I can't run my business."
At Nerik Nisimov's nearby tailor shop, it was a similar story. He has most of his mail delivered to his house, but said a few items - such as letters from his suppliers - come to the business.
Canada Post said the problem was caused by an unexpected number of employees taking sick and going on holiday after the Christmas rush and that service should be back to normal.
"A limited number of customers were affected and the issue has since been resolved," said spokeswoman Anick Losier.
However, Michelle Simson, the MP for the area, said she's been hearing about the problem since last summer. In addition to missed deliveries, she said, some residents have been getting their mail in the evenings.
"Since I've been elected, this has been the single biggest issue in terms of complaints, day after day," she said.
Postal officials haven't been able to explain the problem, she said, so she's drafted a missive, sent Monday, to a Canada Post executive. In an effort to test the postal system's efficiency, she decided not to bother faxing it; instead, she dropped it in the mail.
Adrian Morrow