Beginning today, the familiar sets of two side-by-side outgoing mailboxes we see across the city, one for local mail and the other for mail sent to all other destinations, will be reduced to one outgoing mailbox.

Beginning today, the familiar sets of two side-by-side outgoing mailboxes we see across the city, one for local mail and the other for mail sent to all other destinations, will be reduced to one outgoing mailbox.

This comes as a result of changes at Canada Post.

All outgoing mail will now be sent to Canada Post’s South Central mail processing facility in Toronto.

Canada Post says its Toronto facility, which already handles all outgoing mail addressed to areas outside the Sault, has the ability to handle additional Sault mail using equipment that processes up to 30,000 letters per hour.

Other Northern Ontario communities, including Sudbury and Timmins, will experience this change.

While the change has many locals concerned, a message sent to Sault Ste. Marie Mayor Debbie Amaroso in October by London, Ontario-based Canada Post Communications Officer Tom Creech, states: “For Sault residents and businesses this change will have minimal impact.”

It is expected by Canada Post that outgoing mail sent to all addresses with postal codes that begin with “P” will be sent to Toronto, processed and sent back to the Sault by air and delivered by local mail carriers, with the usual two-day delivery standard largely unchanged.

Canada Post says that more correspondence is being sent by email, and that without the change in processing, it could lose $1 billion over the next few years.

What effect will the processing change have on Sault mail jobs?

While Creech’s message to Mayor Amaroso did not specifically refer to that, the message states: “Let me assure you that our regular full-time and part-time employees have job security and will be re-assigned to other duties as a result of this change.”

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