Commentary
In the 1980s, American science fiction author David Brin and Canadian business professor Ian Lee were both separately deep in thought on the nature of postal delivery.
Brin was writing his dystopian novel “The Postman,” later made into a film by Kevin Costner. Lee was composing his 850 page doctoral thesis on—as the subtitle puts it—the “origins, growth and decay of the state postal function.”
This week, more than half a million Canadians are learning that their postal codes will soon lose door-to-door mail delivery and transition to community mailboxes. It’s a good time to reflect on our relationship to our postal services, with the help of Brin and Lee’s respective contributions….