Residents of St. Clements and surround routes face mailing address changes, as Canada Post is doing away with the post office box numbers. Canada Post is currently reviewing mailing addresses using the St. Clements post office with the intention of converting customers’ current P.O. box mailing addresses to their civic address. This conversion initiative by the crown corporation is scheduled to take place over the next five weeks, coming into effect on June 18.
The address changes will ensure each customer will have a uniquely identifiable mailing address, reflecting the customer’s physical location. Each address is unique to a specific property.
Canada Post representative Tom Zadorsk addressed the issue at Wellesley council Monday night.
“We are upgrading some of the equipment in the (St. Clements) post office. Canada Post wants to civically address every address in Canada, and right now we are working through out Ontario towards that goal,” said Zadorsky. “This is not going to be an overnight process. It will take a while but with the changes happening in St. Clements it is a natural opportunity for us to do it.”
There will be some problems with some addresses in the town especially if a house has a basement apartment because it may not be a recognized address by the municipality.
These people were given a P.O. box in the past but they should not have received one, he explained.
Canada Post has to provide one free method of mail delivery for every valid address.
For the municipality it means that residents will not have two addresses anymore. The street address will be the mailing address and no longer will addresses have P.O. numbers.
Residents will also be able to see their address online as the initiative takes place, allowing package delivery companies the ability to deliver packages to doorsteps and not box numbers.
St. Clements is the first in the region to receive the address change, as Canada Post is not really focusing on southwestern Ontario; instead, they are working in the Toronto area and northern Ontario.
“As opportunities like this present themselves we want to take advantage of them. From what we have seen most people put both addresses on their mail as it is and now they will be able to drop the P.O. box number. This should not be a huge shock for them,” said Zadorsky.
“As always, change is hard for some and there could be complaints but this is the system that is going into place across the province.”
The only physical change will come from within the post office, making it easier for employees to sort the mail right in the buildings.
The rural routes around St. Clements will not be changed this summer, just the P.O. boxes, he added.
Having your civic address as your mailing address means only having one address to give out to correspondents. Canada Post will be using the already established civic number, street name and municipality name issued to customers by the province.
Canada Post will be sending letters to all the residents affected about the change in their mailing address.
