When Canada Post ended Saturday mail in most rural areas
Saturday service had already been phased out in cities long before it was cut back further in 1982
No more Saturday mail?
Not unless you lived in Prince Edward Island.
"Rural Canada became a little more like the cities today," news anchor Peter Mansbridge told viewers watching The National on Sept. 25, 1982.
"The post office has stopped delivering mail on Saturdays."
Millions in savings, but at what cost?
Why? Because there was pressure for Canada Post to cut costs.
"Canada Post says it will save $4 million a year by cutting Saturday service on the rural routes," reporter Paul Workman explained. "It's trying to bring down its $660-million deficit."
In Grand Coulee, Sask., the change meant the mail would be delivered on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.
Local resident Lin Seeley said the Saturday-to-Friday switch meant having to wait a little bit longer for mail at the start of a new week.
"It seems like quite a spell between Friday and Tuesday," Seeley said.
It was also a change that didn't please the newspapers that had weekend editions that were delivered by Canada Post.
Such as the North Battleford News-Optimist, which sent some of its papers out on a Friday night.
A long-term shift
Workman said the post office had already stopped Saturday service in rural Manitoba years earlier and the end of Saturday mail had been a long-term process.
Dave Byas, a Canada Post spokesman, said the rural areas losing their Saturday service was going to have to adjust to the new setup.
"I think the corporation has to weigh the cost of providing the service to perhaps the inconvenience caused," he told CBC News.
Workman said it was the view of Canada Post that it was bringing rural service into line with other parts of the country.
"City people haven't had Saturday mail delivery for years, so the post office says all it's really trying to do is standardize mail service across the country," he said.
