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After many rumours of change, Canada Post has confirmed that changes are coming to the way we receive our mail.  Having mail carriers go door to door is just too expensive and starting next year, they will start to phase out door to door delivery of mail.  This does not mean you will not receive mail, just that Canada Post will start installing community mailboxes in most neighbourhoods and you will pick your mail up from the box rather than at your door.   For me, this doesn’t mean much but with a lot of elderly neighbours, I feel for them while walking out in high heat / cold icy wintery days to check for mail after being so used to delivery at the door.

• 5,094,694 people get door-to-door delivery in Canada.
• Average cost per address is $269.
• 3,804, 574 get mail through group mail boxes.
• Average cost per box is $117.

This also means that less mail carriers will be needed, 6000-8000 will lose their jobs over the next five years (although CPC says that more than this amount are set to retire in that time period).

On top of that, stamps are about to increase by a huge amount, currently stamps cost $0.63 but starting on March 31, 2014 you will pay $1 per stamp (or buy them in a book of 10 or more and pay $0.85) – coupon traders, start buying permanent stamps now!  Will such a high stamp price impact what you send by mail?

Read more details here

UPDATE: Canada Post mentioned on twitter (after many questions asking why they removed permanent P stamps from their website already) that P stamps will need to be topped up to the new rate.

For reference, this is what their site says about Permanent stamps