The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Niki Ashton gives a stamp of disapproval to a plan Canada Post says will mean more convenience for Flin Flonners but which postal workers fear will mean job losses. 'If it ain't broken, why fix it?' said the Churchill MP in opposing Canada Post's plan for a privately run dealership post office at a yet-to-be-determined Flin Flon business. The purpose of the dealership outlet is hotly disputed between Canada Post and the local postal workers' union. Canada Post says the dealership would offer the public longer weekday hours, and the option of weekend hours, to pick up parcels and conduct other postal business. But the union asserts the dealership is part of a plan to reduce services and jobs at the main post office, a charge Canada Post denies. Despite the lack of clarity, Ashton said she supports the status quo of 'being able to go to a one-stop shop where you pick up your mail, where you buy your stamps, where you're able to see postal workers that are part of your community.' Reductions? Ashton also worries the dealership would be the beginning of other service reductions in Flin Flon. 'There's been talk of getting away from letter carriers and moving to superboxes, and that's the loss of an important service here in the community,' she said. 'The point here is to get on top of the issue early enough and make it clear to Canada Post how important the post office and the people that work at the post office are to the community and to the kind of services that the people of Flin Flon and the surrounding area need.' Ashton said Canada Post is 'clearly not working with the community,' pointing to a letter in which an official said the dealership would be established 'at the intersection of Main St and 1st Ave in Flin Flon.' '...there's nothing here that it could move into,' she said, standing at Pioneer Square, which is at the intersection. 'So if that's the tone that they're setting, they haven't communicated with the locals here.' When The Reminder asked Canada Post about the 'Main St and 1st Ave' letter last month, a spokesperson said no site search for the planned dealership had been conducted. During a visit to Flin Flon last week, Ashton was also critical of the Harper government for reducing the amount by which federal health transfers to the provinces will increase each year. She said Flin Flon, with its aging population and status as a health care hub for the surrounding area, will 'need to have stable health care' funding. 'The federal government needs to, rather than pull away from its investments, be a key part of it,' Ashton said. The Conservative government will continue to increase health transfers by six per cent until 2016-17, at which point transfers will rise at the rate of inflation but never fall below three per cent. 'If you look at it in terms of our regional growth and population...and as a province, it really means a decrease in funding,' Ashton said.
