By Noah Miller
Students heading to MacEwan Students’ Centre to mail taxes or process student loans will face disappointment and have to trek a little further with the closure of the Canada Post outlet in the basement of MacHall.
“The closure of the postal outlet was not Canada Post’s choice, it was a request by the [University of Calgary],” said Canada Post spokesperson Teresa Williams.
According to Williams, the kind of postal outlet occupying the MacHall basement is run by a host business, in this case the university, which “takes on a contract with Canada Post to provide postal services.”
“It was strictly done for financial reasons. It was not financially viable,” said U of C Parking and Traffic Services director Susan Austen, who indicated the outlet was actually losing money.
The decision has met with criticism from the Students’ Union and students alike.
SU vice-president events Kat Lord said at this week’s legislative council that the opinion around the executive table is that the outlet “is a valuable service [and] just because it doesn’t turn a profit doesn’t mean they should close it.”
Fourth-year philosophy student Remi Watts agreed.
“It seems to me that shouldn’t exist to turn a profit — it exists as a service to the students,” said Watts. “There seems to be something critical about mailing your parents or processing a student loan. For students who live on campus, where do they go?”
Austen noted that a company comes and processes student loans around registration time and that students can head to any other Canada Post outlet to utilize post services.
“Unfortunately they wont be able to do it on campus, but there is [a postal outlet] at Brentwood, at stadium and also Market Mall,” said Austen. “It’s not quite as convenient and I appreciate that, but it is possible [to access these services] in the area.”