Posties put the kibosh on Holyrood’s mail

By Craig Westcott

Canada Post workers have not only crimped the campaign plans of municipal and provincial election candidates throughout the province by refusing to deliver flyers and junk mail, but the job action is also stopping the Town of Holyrood from getting its fall recreation guide into the hands of residents.

Councillor Mabel Tilley, who co-chair’s Holyrood’s recreation committee said there are a lot of activities planned for this fall including seniors’ programs, the Harvest Hoedown, Tasty Trail and Halloween SpookTRUNKular.

“Just to clarify a point that you just raised about the guide,” said Mayor Gary Goobie. “The Town and the general public were advised… that effective immediately there will be no more community or Neighbourhood Mail in the mailboxes. That includes all Town correspondence such as the guides that we put out and any flyers. They’re prohibited from doing that until further notice. And that’s all we know at this point. But as for now, even our Community Guides will no longer be permitted to go in mailboxes. So we’re going to have to find ways and means of connecting and communicating with the residents and families to let them know exactly what events are coming up, what’s entailed, the dates and everything else, and I’m sure that our director of recreation will certainly find a way around that to get messages… and good information about recreation and the events coming up out to the public.”

Tilley said the Town will also use its social media accounts to list the activities.

Meanwhile, towns such as Paradise, Conception Bay South, Torbay, Portugal Cove-St. Phillips, and Logy Bay-Middle Cove-Outer Cove, among others, which regularly advertise in their local community newspapers, are not as affected by the postal workers job action because the newspapers are distributed directly to the public through numerous retail locations. When a similar disruption occurred at the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and postal services shuttered for several weeks, local community newspapers including The Shoreline and the Northeast Avalon Times kept publishing and getting information out to the public as newspapers and broadcasters are considered essential services.