In the latest move in Canada Post’s drive to make itself totally irrelevant, the corporation has decided to end door-to-door delivery in cities. It is rapidly heading toward an existence akin to the rump of BC Rail, something of a holding company for what’s left of the assets that rightly belong to the citizens in general and which are very much in danger of being sold on the cheap to the friends of the government who bought off the politicians and now expect a rich return on their investment. This move is one of the purest expressions we’ve yet seen that the government exists not to serve the well-being of the electorate, but rather as a mechanism to move wealth from the lower and middle reaches of society to the investor class at the top of the increasingly steep economic pyramid. It is part of the bold and flagrant program of suppression of unions by the Harper government and a way of ensuring that the labour pool keeps expanding as the opportunities for work shrink, thereby ensuring a flow of cheap labour on the “open” market. And, with the disappearance of the letter carrier goes a wealth of cinematic and musical inspiration, thinking of items like “Please, Mr. Postman”, “Il Postino” and “The Postman Knocks Twice”.  Now I wonder if the price of a letter will decline…

And I can’t miss the opportunity to mark another sad exit, though it would be hard to argue that the man got cheated:

And a couple of longer items: