Why the City is Now Wasting Less of my Tax Dollars

Just a follow up on the couriered packages sent by the City.

I have a friend and colleague in Ottawa Public Health with who I had addressed my concerns regarding the delivery costs of questionably useful materials.

I have been reassured by him that indeed this has been looked into and considered and here is the scoop:

With regards to the mailing on shaken baby syndrome, the costs were funded by the Province, not the City and it was sent out to less than 500 local family physicians at a cost of closer to $2,000 or $4 per shipment.

With regards to the actual content, the City is going to take a step back to take more time to evaluate the usefulness of the materials sent out.

With regards to offices where there are multiple doctors (like my friend who in his 11 person practice received 44 shaken baby posters with each doc getting their very own 4) they will only be sending one or two for the whole practice.

My friend with the City noted that he was told the cost of the shipment was less than what Canada Post had offered, and I believe that only with regards to courier costs, or same day delivery costs. At $4 per shipment, the cost is roughly the same as it would have been with regular mail without any discount whatsoever applied for bulk.

I discussed this matter with a high-ranking executive from Canada Post and was assured that there was no way that any type of couriered shipment could be cheaper than a bulk rate on regular mail.

I will continue to follow with interest the issue on mailing costs. I have asked the gentleman from Canada Post to provide me with a name of a salesperson so I can have him or her speak to my friend over at the City and hopefully I will have a final answer on that matter of cost soon.

Regardless, kudos to the City for looking into the matter so quickly and for making some very positive changes!