When promised mail improvements failed to deliver praise for Ottawa
An 'overtly cynical' media questioned motive behind government's pre-election announcement in 1979
The federal government had one story to tell, but reporters saw another being delivered.
"Most Canadians take their mail service for granted, but not out in the suburbs," the CBC's Peter Mansbridge told viewers on March 16, 1979, when acting as a reporter on The National, the show he would later host.
"Most of the new areas have never had door-to-door delivery. Instead, they've had to drive to regional mail drops."
As Mansbridge further explained, that had been the setup since 1975, as Canada's post office took steps to rein in its deficit.
But on the eve of an expected federal election call, that was all about to change.
Whatever the reason, 'a good thing'
"Just three weeks ago, Postmaster-General Gilles Lamontagne was still saying the expanded service just wasn't affordable," said Mansbridge.
"But today, in spite of a continuing deficit, Lamontagne was saying it was and it would start soon."
Given that background, Mansbridge said the media was "overtly cynical" about the government's motive in making the sudden change in service.
"Mr. Lamontagne, why did it take an election to get you people to do these things?" one reporter asked the postmaster general.
"Well, you know very well, whatever we do these days is because of the election," said Lamontagne, when responding to the question.
"But the question of having 160,000 more Canadians having the postal service door-to-door, election or not, is a good thing for them."
An ongoing challenge
Mansbridge noted the government did not provide any firm timelines on when such service would be rolled out to the Canadians living in those new subdivisions.
The Toronto Star reported that around 6,000 homes in the city's Metro area would see service improvements under the plan outlined by the postmaster-general.
But the Liberal government was defeated in the election of May 22, 1979, meaning it would be up to the new Joe Clark-led Progressive Conservative government to decide how the post office would be run at that point.
And the issue of delivering mail to newer subdivisions led to further controversy in the decade to come when so-called super mailboxes were installed in various communities across the country — and not just in new subdivisions, either.
