Editing Postal codes in Canada (section)

==History==
===City postal zones===
Numbered postal zones were first used in [[Toronto]] in 1925.<ref>{{cite news|title=Numbers Designate New Postal Zones|newspaper=[[Toronto Star]]|date=23 July 1925|page=3}}</ref> Mail to a Toronto address in zone 5 would be addressed in this format:<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JtY9AAAAYAAJ&q=%22Toronto+5,+Ontario%22 |title=New Dimensions in Curriculum Development: Proceedings |date=1966 |publisher=Ontario Curriculum Institute |pages=110 |language=en}}</ref>

 37 Bloor Street West
 Toronto 5, Ontario

As of 1943, Toronto was divided into 14 zones, numbered from 1 to 15, except that 7 and 11 were unused, and there was a 2B zone.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uqoLAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Toronto+2B,+Ontario%22 |title=McGraw-Hill Directory and Almanac of Canada |date=1968 |publisher=Corpus Publishers Services Limited |volume=4 |pages=325 |language=en}}</ref>

Postal zones were implemented in [[Montreal]] in 1944.<ref>{{cite news | title=Montréal est divisé en 30 zones postales | newspaper=[[La Presse (Canadian newspaper)|La Presse]] | date=14 August 1944 | page=10 | url=https://diffusion.banq.qc.ca/pdfjs-1.6.210-dist_banq/web/pdf.php/WqStq5isACXpHfXaHtG2XQ.pdf#page=12}}</ref>

By the early 1960s, other cities in Canada had been divided into postal zones, including [[Quebec City|Quebec]], [[Ottawa]], [[Winnipeg]], and [[Vancouver]] as well as Toronto and Montreal.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=qUIyAAAAIBAJ&sjid=LOYFAAAAIBAJ&pg=4430%2C5788916 |title=Postal Zone Numbers Speed Big City Mail |work=
[[Ottawa Citizen]]|date=25 February 1963}}</ref> For example, an address in Vancouver would be addressed as:

 804 Robson Street
 Vancouver 1, B.C.

In the late 1960s, however, the Post Office began implementing a three-digit zone number scheme in major cities to replace existing one- and two-digit zone numbers, starting in Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver.<ref>{{Cite web |title=House of Commons Debates, 28th Parliament, 1st ... - Canadian Parliamentary Historical Resources |url=https://parl.canadiana.ca/view/oop.debates_HOC2801_10/448?r=0&s=1 |access-date=2024-11-25 |website=parl.canadiana.ca}}</ref> For example, an address in Metropolitan Toronto would be addressed as:<ref name="books.google.com">{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mfhAAQAAIAAJ&q=%22Toronto+185,+Ontario%22 |title=Revue Canadienne Des Langues Vivantes |date=1972 |publisher=Ontario Modern Language Teachers' Association |language=en}}</ref>

 1253 Bay Street
 Toronto 185, Ontario

Toronto's renumbering took effect 1 May 1969, accompanied by an advertising campaign under the slogan "Your number is up".<ref>[http://parl.canadiana.ca/view/oop.debates_HOC2801_10/710?r=0&s=1 ''House of Commons Debates''], 8 July 1969, Official Report, Volume 10, E. Cloutier, Queen's Printer and Controller of Stationery, 1969, page 11004</ref> However, with impending plans for a national postal code system, then&zwj;&ndash;&zwj;Postmaster General [[Eric Kierans]] announced that the Post Office would begin cancelling the new three-digit city zone system. Companies had changed their mail addressing at their own expense, only to find that the new zoning would prove to be short-lived.<ref>{{cite news | title=Costs of postal zone changes hit some companies second time | date=4 June 1969 | first=Terrence | last=Belford | page=B4 | newspaper=[[The Globe and Mail]] }}</ref>
<!-- TO DO: determine earliest use of postal zones (1925?); also determine if zones were used in 1961 in five cities: [[Montreal]], Toronto, Ottawa, [[Winnipeg, Manitoba|Winnipeg]], and [[Vancouver]], and later [[London, Ontario|London]], [[Ontario]]. -->

===Planning===
As the largest Canadian cities grew in the 1950s and 1960s, the volume of mail passing through the country's postal system also grew, to billions of items by the 1950s and tens of billions of items by the mid-1960s. Consequently, it became progressively more difficult for employees who handsorted mail to memorize and keep track of all the individual letter-carrier routes within each city. New technology that allowed mail to be delivered faster also contributed to the pressure for these employees to sort the mail properly.

A report [[Table (parliamentary procedure)|tabled]] in the [[House of Commons of Canada|House of Commons]] in 1969 dealt with the expected impact of "environmental change" on the Post Office operations over the following 25&nbsp;years. A key recommendation was the "establishment of a task force to determine the nature of the automation and mechanization the Post Office should adopt, which might include design of a postal code".<ref>
{{cite news
 |title=Technical advances in communications will erode Post Office work, report says
 |page=A3
 |newspaper=[[The Globe and Mail]]
 |date=6 May 1969
 }}
</ref><ref name="history1">
{{cite web
 |url=http://www.civilization.ca/cpm/chrono/ch1971ae.html
 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930055242/http://www.civilization.ca/cpm/chrono/ch1971ae.html
 |archive-date=30 September 2007
 |title=A Chronology of Canadian Postal History: The Postal Code (Archived version)
 |author=[[Canadian Postal Museum]]
 |date=16 September 2001
 |access-date=7 January 2007
 }}
</ref><!-- GA – Uncited material cloaked ----- Actual system design was carried out by a retired Canadian Army officer named William JA Groom.{{Fact|date=January 2009}} -->

In December 1969, Communications Minister [[Eric Kierans]] announced that a six-character postal code would be introduced, superseding the three-digit zone system.<ref>{{cite news
 |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=iaIyAAAAIBAJ&sjid=-uwFAAAAIBAJ&pg=886%2C3315014
 |title=Postal coding in '70
 |page=50
 |newspaper=[[Ottawa Citizen|Saturday Citizen]]
 |date=24 December 1969
 }}</ref>
He later tabled a report in February 1970, entitled "A Canadian Public Address Postal Coding System", submitted by the firm of Samson, Belair, Simpson, Riddell Inc.<ref>
{{cite news
 |title=To speed sorting and delivery: Proposed national postal code system for Canada
 |page=5
 |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=GvgvAAAAIBAJ&sjid=FkkDAAAAIBAJ&pg=2957%2C1220661
 |newspaper=[[The Stanstead Journal]]
 |date=26 February 1970
 }}</ref>

===Implementation===
Canada was one of the last Western countries to implement a nationwide postal code system.<ref>
{{cite news
 |last=Rolfe |first=John
 |date=4 March 1972
 |title=Cote denies conflict between ITT contract and personnel exchange with Post Office
 |newspaper=[[The Globe and Mail]]
 |page=B3
 }}</ref> The introduction of the postal code began with a test in [[Ottawa]] on 1 April 1971.<ref>
{{cite news
 |title=Postal code service for Canada to be inaugurated on April first
 |page=5
 |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=OPgvAAAAIBAJ&sjid=FkkDAAAAIBAJ&pg=2963%2C3400343
 |newspaper=[[The Stanstead Journal]]
 |date=18 March 1971
 }}
</ref>
Coding of Ottawa was followed by a provincial-level rollout of the system in [[Manitoba]], and the system was gradually implemented in the rest of the country from 1972 to 1974, although the nationwide use of the code by the end of 1974 was only 38.2 per cent.<ref>{{cite news
 |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=LhQyAAAAIBAJ&sjid=2qEFAAAAIBAJ&pg=5781%2C1205627
 |title=Will 'gentle persuasion' aid postal code?
 |page=9
 |first=Guy
 |last=Demarino
 |newspaper=[[Montreal Gazette]]
 |date=7 January 1975
 }}</ref>

The introduction of such a code system allowed Canada Post to easily speed up and simplify the flow of mail in the country, with sorting machines being able to handle 26,640 objects an hour.<ref>{{cite news
 |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=yNhRAAAAIBAJ&sjid=GG8DAAAAIBAJ&pg=2430%2C3385833
 |title=New postal code for all of Canada to speed delivery and avoid errors
 |page=19
 |newspaper=L'Avenir
 |date=30 January 1973
 }}</ref>

The [[Canadian Union of Postal Workers]] objected to the automated sorting system, mainly because the wages for those who ran the new automated machines were much lower than for those who had hand-sorted mail.<ref>{{cite news
 |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=XrYyAAAAIBAJ&sjid=jOwFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1584%2C2090904
 |title=Boycotts Ordered: Postmen Declare Automation War
 |page=113
 |newspaper=[[Ottawa Citizen|Saturday Citizen]]
 |date=5 June 1974
 }}</ref>
The unions ended up staging job action and public information campaigns, with the message that they did not want people or businesses to use postal codes on their mail.<ref>{{cite news
 |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=nog1AAAAIBAJ&sjid=9KEFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1409%2C1757737
 |title=Quick mail only without postal codes
 |page=5
 |first=Irwin
 |last=Block
 |newspaper=[[Montreal Gazette]]
 |date=7 June 1974
 }}</ref>
The union declared 20 March 1975 to be National "Boycott the Postal Code" Day, also demanding a reduction in the work week from 40 to 30 hours.<ref>{{cite news
 |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=-woyAAAAIBAJ&sjid=16EFAAAAIBAJ&pg=2367%2C534713
 |title=Postal workers vote on contract demands
 |page=5
 |first=Joan
 |last=Boaden
 |newspaper=[[Montreal Gazette]]
 |date=19 March 1975
 }}
</ref>
The boycott was called off in February 1976 after a new collective agreement was signed with the CUPW.<ref>
{{cite news
 |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=lZkuAAAAIBAJ&sjid=tqEFAAAAIBAJ&pg=947%2C277033
 |title=Postal union chiefs claim pact violated, threaten to retaliate
 |page=3
 |first=Michelle
 |last=Morissette
 |newspaper=[[Montreal Gazette]]
 |date=17 September 1976
 }}
</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Morissette |first=M. |date=September 17, 1976 |title=Postal union chiefs claim pact violated, threaten to retaliate |work=The Montreal Gazette |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=lZkuAAAAIBAJ&sjid=tqEFAAAAIBAJ&pg=947%2C277033}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Kovacaj |first=Fiona |date= |title=Boycott Movements |url=https://exhibits.library.utoronto.ca/exhibits/show/unionbuttonproject/boycotts |access-date=June 6, 2023 |website=University of Toronto Exhibits}}</ref> <!-- GA – Uncited material cloaked ----- Typists also criticized the decision to make the code alphanumeric, arguing that an all-number code was far easier to type. Canada Post defended this decision by stating that the all-number system in the United States had failed as there were too few combinations.{{Fact|date=January 2009}} -->

One 1975 advertisement in the Toronto magazine ''Byliner'' generated controversy by showing a man writing a postal code on the bottom of a [[G-string|thonged]] woman with the following ditty: 
<blockquote>"We're not 'stringing' you along,<br> Use postal codes – you'll 'thing' our 'thong',<br> Don't be cheeky – you've all got 'em<br> Please include them on the bottom."<ref name="rodriguez">{{Cite web |title=House of Commons Debates, 30th Parliament, 1st ... - Canadian Parliamentary Historical Resources |url=https://parl.canadiana.ca/view/oop.debates_HOC3001_07/284?r=0&s=1 |access-date=2024-11-25 |website=parl.canadiana.ca}}</ref></blockquote> 
The advertisement was denounced as "sexist garbage" in the [[House of Commons of Canada|House of Commons]] by [[New Democratic Party of Canada|NDP]] MP [[John Rodriguez (politician)|John Rodriguez]], prompting an apology from [[Postmaster General of Canada|Postmaster General]] [[Bryce Mackasey]].<ref name="rodriguez" />