FactsCanada.ca... More Canadian trivia than you can shake a hockey stick at!

July 27, 2002.

[John] Here's an editorial from Craig. Stupid is as stupid does (and I'm
not talking about Craig!).


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A Tale of Two Letters
By Craig Hartnett (craig@...)


While editing John's article/quiz (which we sent out earlier today), I went
to the Canada Post Web site to have a look a their official addressing
guide to ensure that I correctly formatted the addresses of the provincial
and territorial premiers. What I found there instead boggled my mind.

Did you know (I didn't until today) that, as of October 21, 2002, Canada
Post is changing the official two-letter abbreviation for the Province of
Newfoundland and Labrador from "NF" to "NL"? To be fair to Canada Post,
they say that they are doing this at the request of the government of the
Province... although they could have said no, but in fact they were
"pleased ... to comply". The announcement was made in a Canada Post press
release on April 29, 2002.

Is it just me, or is this a colossal, bureaucratic waste of time, money and
effort, and an inconvenience to millions of people and businesses across
the country and around the world who have correspondents in Newfoundland
and Labrador? With all due respect to our subscribers and fellow citizens
in Labrador (who, I presume, are honoured to be represented by this "L"),
what on Earth is the point?! I can understand the technical reasons behind
similar changes to something like area codes for the telephone system
(experienced in at least Vancouver and Toronto recently), but people in
Labrador have been successfully (for the most part) receiving mail
addressed to "NF" for ages now.

No more, however. Canada Post is vague, but they say on their site that,
after a six-month grace period following October 21, 2002, "NF" will no
longer be recognised. This means that after April 21, 2003, your magazine
subscription will probably be returned stamped "bad address" (we all know
how long magazines take to update their subscriber lists) despite the fact
that any five-year-old could tell the postal employee wielding the power in
that stamp where to send the "incorrectly addressed" mail. In fact, the
postal employee will know damn well where it should go, but the rules are
the rules. (Makes me wonder about mail addressed to "Colombie-Britannique"
[C-B]. I bet that gets through in deference to the language police in
Quebec.) That said, one wonders what the point of the two-letter provincial
designator is when the postal code contains most of the necessary
information anyway. As for your rich Aunt Agatha back in Ireland (she got
rich selling her castle to some now-bankrupt dot-com millionaire) from whom
you haven't heard in years (and now you know why)... notice that you've
inherited her millions will be returned "bad address", all for the lack of
the letter "L".

Believe it -- the wheels of bureaucracy have seized, with our collective
necks (and wallets) caught in the mechanisms. We've sunk to the level of
African banana republics that change the names of streets, cities and whole
countries with each successive (and usually bloody) change of government.

Despite my best efforts, the only mention I could find of Canada Post on
the Newfoundland (and Labrador) government's Web site was a lot of
complaining about an increase in parcel rates that had a negative impact on
some of the residents of the more remote areas of Labrador. Fair and good
-- people need to complain when the price of anything is too high. However,
I'd like to know if the people of Newfoundland and Labrador (that is, the
people who are all in favour of this largesse on the part of Canada Post)
are willing to foot the bill for this inconvenience, or are they as
outraged as I am?

What of the sub-domain ".nf.ca"? I notice that "nl.ca" is "unavailable"
from CIRA (the Canadian Internet Registration Authority) and does not work
as a stand-alone Web address, but the only mention of the letters "nl" on
their site (according to a Google search, since CIRA doesn't have their own
site search engine) is in a now-dead (and out-of-date anyway) FAQ that
mentions the TLD (top-level domain) of the Netherlands. I wonder if all the
owners of ".nf.ca" domains will be forced to change to ".nl.ca", thereby
killing who knows how many Web sites and e-mail addresses with the stroke
of a pen (or the click of a mouse).


Canada Post Addressing Guidelines -- http://factscanada.ca/go.php?id=327
Canada Post Addressing Guide (PDF format, 1.1 MB) --
http://factscanada.ca/go.php?id=328
Newfoundland and Labrador to receive new postal symbol --
http://factscanada.ca/go.php?id=329
New provincial postal symbol for Newfoundland-Labrador --
http://factscanada.ca/go.php?id=330


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[Craig] This wasn't a planned editorial, but I just couldn't believe the
insanity. Do you have an opinion? I'm interested to hear it at
craig@... . Thanks for your indulgence.


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