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By Chantal Wagner

preventing porch pirates

Parcel volume in peak season since March

Dec 2, 2020 | 4:39 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – Parcel volumes at Canada Post haven’t slowed down since the pandemic began in March.

That’s according to Ross Naroznick a letter carrier in Medicine Hat and Union Local President for CUPW.

He says right now it’s gotten even busier with more people shopping online for the holidays.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday parcels are starting to trickle in and it will be “full-blown” in the next day or so.

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Naroznick says unfortunately parcel stealing continues to be an issue.

He suggests checking your community box daily so it frees up space for others.

Due to high mail volumes, they won’t make a second attempt to deliver your item if you are not home.

“If they have a note saying that they don’t want it dropped off at their doorstep then they can be carded to one of the retail shops and picked up there,” Naroznick said. “But because of social distancing and the pandemic, they’re trying to make sure that the volumes are getting constantly put out and not having a bunch of traffic inside the retail locations.”

However, if you are working 9-5, the safest option would be to set your delivery preferences so packages are sent straight to Canada Post’s retail shops.

“They can actually go online if they have a parcel that’s on the way and it’s got a bar-code generated through Canada Post, they can go online and they can add preferences as to whether they don’t want it dropped off at the doorstep or if they want it at the back door or side door. Or when they go to order they can ask for those specifications and then they can be put on from the get-go,” he added.

As for regular mail, Naroznick says that process has been slowed down as well.

“We don’t have as much manpower to sort manual mail because of social distancing, because of the volumes, there’s not enough time and not enough space to do it.”

To ensure your mail and parcels get to their destination before Christmas, Naroznick suggests priority shipping.

As for current timelines, he says delivery is on time and some things are showing up 2-3 days early.

But if it’s coming from further east, it will be delayed a little bit since there will be more processing and depot stops.

“Anything around here though goes through Calgary and straight to Medicine Hat,” Naroznick adds. “So everything has been pretty much on time.”