An Ottawa woman is fighting Canada Post over the placement of her community mailbox.
She is dying and says a last minute decision to stick the box in front of her house is mean-spirited. The community mail box was supposed to go across from a house at 189 Churchill. Instead, it will end up in a different spot blocking a crucial view. It comes down to a fight over a few feet. But for Linda Kitchikeesic, it makes the world of difference. At a desk inside her tiny bungalow, Kitchikeesic focusses on her volunteer work, trying to take her mind off the pain. She has kidney disease, and, she says, limited time left. Her view of a field and the river helps calm her.
‘I just sit here for hours, too tired to do anything but look lazily stare out at the view,’ she says.
It’s a view she says is going to be obliterated by a community mail box that was supposed to go, according to a letter from Canada Post, across from the house next door.
‘The big deal is that I am terminally ill and I sit here for hours staring at that exact spot.’
The concrete slabs are in. The community mailbox will soon follow. Notices went out several weeks ago to thousands of Ottawa residents informing them their door-to-door delivery was disappearing and where their community mailboxes would go.
In Ottawa’s west end, Craig Keulman is happy with his location.
‘It's around the corner, between two houses, beside a cedar hedge, so it’s not affecting anyone at all.’
86-year-old Helen Sutherland, though, will have several blocks to maneuver to gather her mail.
‘It’s not going to be good for me at all and on icy winter days, it's not convenient.’
Canada Post says about one-fifth of the sites in Ottawa have been contested.
‘We change about 20% of sites as we go,’ says Jon Hamilton, with Canada Post, ‘that's been about the average in Ottawa to date, but it has to be a site that is safer or more accessible than a site we originally put forward.’
In Linda Kitchikeesic's case, Canada Post says a hydro pole forced the mailbox to move several feet over. Linda doesn't accept that and wonders who else is going to find out their community mailbox isn't going where they thought it was.
‘This has to get changed,’ Kitchikeesic says, ‘because everyone else who has one of these letters, it could happen to them too. It’s not just me, so what's that worth,’ she says, as she holds up the letter from Canada Post.
The city of Hamilton is fighting the placement of any community mailboxes. It's a nasty fight that's now before the courts. In Ottawa, councillors have dealt with complaints from homeowners and are working to influence location and safety issues.
