Ucluelet’s municipal council was recently surprised to discover a loophole that allows local mail to stay local.
In an attempt to streamline its sorting processes in 2013, Canada Post began shipping all Vancouver Island’s mail to a processing centre in Richmond to be sorted.
This meant any letters mailed from Ucluelet to Ucluelet traveled to the mainland to be sorted before being shipped back.
Council recently received a letter from Susan Margles of Canada Post who explained letters submitted directly to the local post office would be sorted locally.
“With respect to Ucluelet, I am advised that mail specifically deposited in the post office and intended for local delivery continues to be sorted at the office,” Margles wrote.
Coun. Sally Mole questioned whether this was accurate but suggested that if it was true the district should get the word out.
“When I read that, it seems to me like if you go in there and actually hand your letter to the person (at the post office) they’ll put it into the local (P.O.) box,” Mole said.
“Whether or not that’s true, we don’t know about it. I’ve never done that...but maybe we should check and see if that is in fact the case and then put it out there that your local mail can be sorted locally.”
Mole did some investigating and was delighted to tell the Westerly News that local mail can in fact stay local.
“I went to the post office to see if the dropping of the mail with the staff inside would get sorted locally, and the answer was ‘yes,’” she said.
Any local letters dropped into mailboxes will continue traveling to the mainland to be sorted.
andrew.bailey@westerlynews.ca