Overall, Canadians are not in favour of service changes at Canada Post that would see home delivery phased out in urban areas.
A new Angus Reid Global public opinion poll indicates 58 per cent of Canadians surveyed do not support the changes, while 38 per cent favour the end of door-to-door service in urban areas.
Not surprisingly, those who still receive door-to-door mail delivery are most opposed to an end to this service (73 per cent), followed by apartment and condominium dwellers who pick up mail from their lobby (62 per cent). However, a clear majority of surveyed Canadians who already pick up mail from a community mailbox in their neighbourhood support the changes (59 per cent).
A more focused look at the data shows Canadians generally fall into three main categories: those who believe Canada Post provides an essential service (48 per cent of the sample); those who are cautiously concerned about the changes (35 per cent of the sample); and those who are unaffected and unconcerned about the changes (17 per cent of the sample). The segments were discovered by examining patterns of how people answered the survey questions, using a statistical technique called cluster analysis.
When scrutinized along past voting lines, support for the changes appears highest among respondents who voted Conservative in the 2011 election. More than half (53 per cent) support phasing out door-to-door delivery in urban areas. By contrast, less than one-third (31 per cent) of those polled who voted Liberal or for the NDP in 2011 support the service changes.
“For some Canadians, changes to Canada Post delivery service taste about as good as the glue on the back of a stamp,” says Shachi Kurl, vice-president, Angus Reid Global. “But the level of distaste depends on which party they have stuck with politically in the past. These changes appear to give Prime Minister Stephen Harper less trouble with his base.”
The poll of 1,010 Canadians was conducted online on Dec. 13 and the margin of error is estimated to be plus or minus 31. per cent.