Editorial
Motion in Parliament is not going to see postal service magically restored

We applaud the efforts of Oak Ridges - Markham MP Lui Temelkovski in putting forth his motion in the House of Commons regarding rural mail delivery.

Although there has been some luck involved in it progressing as far as it has, it seems, as of this writing, that it's going to be passed comfortably in the House sometime today (Wednesday).

The motion calls upon Transport, Infrastructure and Communities Minister Lawrence Cannon to use his power to direct Canada Post to maintain the traditional delivery practices in rural areas, while protecting public

safety for rural residents who have to collect their mail some distance from their homes.

That sounds lofty, but we're haunted by the question of what exactly could Cannon do to resolve these problems.

Rural deliveries have been curtailed in numerous parts of the country, including several places in King Township, because of issues involving labour unions and concerns for worker safety. We don't believe that even a Minister of Crown has the power to magically make problems like that just go away.

Monday's debate demonstrated there is a lot of support among all parties in the House for Temelkovski's efforts, although the Conservatives couldn't resist the opportunity to try a little finger pointing at the Liberals In the midst of the politicking,

we thought York - Simcoe MP Peter Van Loan was on the money when he noted it's going to be hard to undo what has already been done.

"The genie is out of the bottle," he said. "Having put them (the rural carriers) into

the union, it's virtually impossible to take them back out and return them to contract workers."

We're not saying that the situation is hopeless, but we are saying that it's not going to be easy, and it's not likely to be solved in a hurry