Bring Back The Post Office

Door-to-door mail delivery enables us to be comfortably insulated from our neighbours. That is a problem because the more people know and trust their neighbours, the more likely they are to be happy with their neighbourhoods and the healthier they tend to be.

To remedy, we should bring back the post office. Neighbours couldn’t help but run into each other every now and again when they pick up their mail at the central location. Gradually they’d get to know one another, sort out who is or isn’t a serial killer and establish trust.

Superboxes like they have in some suburbs won’t do. That’s what Canada Post wants. But although we are aligned with those penny pinchers on the idea to end home delivery, we don’t care that much about efficiency. We care about friendship. We care about neighbours playing bean bag toss.

Mail should be picked up in a place where people are likely to talk to each other, ideally a spot where it’s a pain to park but close enough from home to walk over.

Constructing actual post office buildings would not adhere to the House Party of Canada’s policy on job reduction. We already have an increasing surplus of indoor square footage per person in this country. And who wants to spend a month or two swinging a hammer if it isn’t needed? Not us. Instead, we could just put the mail boxes in a local coffee shop or somewhere else people might like to visit.

This is how mail stays relevant. All the mail we currently get would be better emailed. But with conversation inducing mail pick up, as long the government continues to use archaic communication tools with us, we'll be getting the benefit of exercise and conversation.