MONTREAL—The mayor of Canada’s second-largest city sounded off against Canada Post Thursday by taking a jackhammer to a community mailbox under construction near a Montreal park.

Denis Coderre, handling the equipment a little tentatively on live TV, said he was breaking up a concrete example of how Canada Post is imposing its will on Canadian municipalities.

The mayor chipped away at the cement base where a community mailbox was apparently being installed “without any consultation,” Coderre said.

“The message we’re sending today is that Canada Post will respect us,” said Coderre, who was sporting a hard hat, safety boots and an orange and yellow reflective vest.

A Canadian Press video also shows a backhoe pulling up pavers and removing debris at the mailbox site in a leafy area around Anse-a-l'Orme Nature Park in Montreal.

In his opposition, Coderre joins other municipal leaders who have railed against both the Canada post decision to phase out house-to-house delivery, and to replace it with a network of large boxes installed on street corners and other property.

The infrastructure is unwelcome, Coderre and other municipal leaders, and citizen groups, have said.

Prior to Thursday’s staged protest, Coderre called on the leaders of all the federal parties to tell the public where they stand on the future of Canada Post and its decision to halt home mail delivery,

Thursday, Coderre avoided pointing the finger at Prime Minister Stephen Harper, whose government is responsible for the Crown corporation, but the mayor rejected the argument that Ottawa cannot intervene in the operations of Canada Post.

Harper is the only one of the four main federal leaders who hasn’t accepted the mayor’s invitation to discuss Montreal’s concerns and expectations.

“I want to know exactly what they are going to do with Canada Post,” the mayor told a news conference.

He called Canada Post’s actions “savage and arrogant” and promised to bill the corporation for the work involved in removing the concrete.

Coderre did not specify if he would mail the bill.

Canada Post issued a statement after the mayor’s first news conference Thursday, to say it is ready to work with communities to find mailbox locations that are “safe, accessible and practical.”

Coderre responded on camera, “They have the arrogance to send a note saying, that ‘oh, if you want to do something . . . we’ll talk together and discuss.’ That’s BS.”

The NDP and the Bloc Quebecois both came out against the concrete base.

“I think Canada Post shouldn’t intervene in cities without the agreement of each municipality around Quebec,” Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe said as he campaigned in Laval, Que.

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“This is what all the municipalities are asking for and we’re supporting that totally.”

Duceppe also slammed the federal government for making decisions that affect towns and cities in Quebec.

“Once again, it is not up to Ottawa to decide what happens in our municipalities,” he said. “It’s becoming an obsession. We’re seeing it with railways, we’re seeing it with pipelines and we’re seeing it with mailboxes.”

The brouhaha came a day after the national president of the postal workers union urged voters not to vote for Harper on Oct. 19.

Mike Palecek was speaking as angry postal workers greeted the Conservative leader’s arrival in Edmonton as part of a cross-country tour.

The tour comes four years after a nasty dispute between Canada Post and its workers led to rotating strikes, a lockout and ultimately back-to-work legislation.

Although the two sides eventually came to an agreement in 2012, the issue has lingered in the courts. The union’s charter challenge to the legislation is scheduled to be heard later this fall.

Palecek said the timing of the court case and the contract talks make the future of Canada Post an election issue.

Canada Post’s move to community mailboxes is expected to save the corporation about $500 million per year — an effort to cope with what the corporation says is a declining volume of mail in the digital age.

The NDP has vowed to reverse the cuts, while the Liberals have promised a moratorium on any cuts at Canada Post while they study the future of the corporation.

“We strongly disagree with Harper’s decision to ask Canadians to pay more for a reduced quality of service,” David McGuinty, the Liberal candidate in Ottawa-South, said in a statement Thursday.

“Montreal, Laval, Longueuil and communities across the country are rightly speaking out on this government’s failure to consult and listen.”

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