What’s with Canada Post? The way it handles itself suggests a deliberate strategy of self-destruction.

The post office’s latest misstep is its ill-starred attempt to tack a $5 surcharge on parcels delivered to Fort McMurray, Alberta.

The ostensible reason had to do with the high wage rates paid in Alberta’s oilsands. Canada Post said it couldn’t afford to deliver parcels there unless customers forked over more cash.

It was a peculiar rationale. Average weekly wages vary dramatically across the country. Statistics Canada figures show they are highest in the Northwest Territories — about 48 per cent over the national average.

Conversely, Prince Edward Island workers earn, on average, about 15 per cent less than the national wage.

Yet Prince Edward Islanders don’t get a special break on their parcel rates. Nor do N.W.T. residents pay a 48 per cent extra premium.

Given that Alberta is the heartland of the governing Conservative party, the Crown corporation’s decision was also peculiar politically — which may explain why the surcharge was abruptly rescinded Monday, even before it took effect.

In a terse news release, the post office explained its reversal as an attempt to ease “confusion and concern in the market.”

A better explanation would have been that the original idea was foolish.

Foolish because Canada Post claims that parcel delivery is both its forte and its future. Postal offices are “bursting at the seams like Santa Claus’ big red bag of gifts,” it crowed in one pre-Christmas press release, noting that it had just set a record for daily parcel delivery.

That record is not likely to be repeated if customers fear being charged arbitrary surcharges on top of the normal fees for delivering parcels across the country (parcel post rates already vary by weight, size and distance).

But then, there is much about Canada Post that doesn’t make sense for a company attempting to survive.

When customers complained that their mail hadn’t been delivered — in some cases for up to two weeks — during a Christmas period beset by winter storms, Canada Post did eventually apologize.

But its answer was not to promise better delivery. Instead it promised to better inform its customers the next time it suspends delivery.

It’s true that weather can make it tough for letter carriers. But bad weather is not unknown in Canada and most businesses make allowance for it.

Toronto Star carriers, for example, managed to drop off the newspaper at my house every morning during the ice storm period. So did carriers delivering the Globe and Mail and New York Times.

By contrast, Canada Post didn’t deliver the mail for five days.

In my case, the local letter carrier was taking a previously scheduled week-long holiday over Christmas. As she explained, when I later ran into her lugging a week’s worth of mail, Canada Post had managed to replace her for only half a day.

Why? The company’s explanation is that some regular letter carriers and temporary relief workers didn’t show up because of the weather. The Canadian Union of Postal Workers says that the Crown corporation doesn’t have enough casual workers to draw on during times of stress.

Both explanations probably contain some truth, although the union’s seems closer to the mark. Christmas mail-delivery failures in Toronto, Winnipeg, Newfoundland and Regina appear to have been the logical result of Canada Post’s decision to solve its financial problems by reducing service and raising prices.

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That’s a decision exemplified by its bizarre plan to end all door-to-door delivery while raising stamp prices by from 63 cents to $1.

For most businesses, charging more while providing less is a recipe for disaster — a way station on the road to bankruptcy. Is Canada Post deliberately courting failure? If so, under whose orders?

Thomas Walkom's column appears Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday.

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