July 28, 2000
SEAN McKIBBON
Nunatsiaq News
IQALUIT — A frustrated CIBC customer who can’t seem to get his cheques printed with the right address on them may be a victim of Nunavut’s NU postal designation.
Or more precisely Canada Post’s struggles to deal with it.
Orin Durey, a Baker Lake resident, says he has tried twice to get his branch in Rankin Inlet to send him cheques that say "Nunavut."
"CIBC will not print the cheques with the correct address, NU. One bloody letter is all we’re talking about," Durey said. Instead his cheques always arrive with "NT."
But one Canada Post official says the problem is likely a result of old addressing software provided by Canada Post to large volume postal customers such as banks.
A new version of the software should be sent out to the banks and other large Canada Post customers by December or January, said Mark Alexander, an official with Canada Post.
"It is officially NU," Alexander said.
Meanwhile, Nunavut residents can now feel free to use the designation that had some Canada Post execs in a ti y over it’s possible offensiveness to Francophones.
Last year another Canada Post official, Leigh-Anne Stanton, told Nunatsiaq News that the Crown corporation had balked at the designation because nu means "naked" in French.
But many people in the territory had anticipated that NU would be the proper abbreviation. NorthwesTel even printed NU in it’s 1999-2000 telephone directory.
After a decision by the Standards Council of Canada, NU won out.
Alexander says that Canada Post changed it’s sorting machines so that letters with NU or NT on them will be recognized as being bound for Nunavut. He said there should not be any delay.
He also said Canada Post’s official addressing directory will be published in August, and will contain NU as the designation for Nunavut.
"NU is now the proper abbreviation," he said. But that assertion from the post office only came after Nunatsiaq News peeled off a layer of the corporation’s public relations apparel.
One front-line public inquiries flack said the NU designation had not been implemented yet.
"So far there’s a tentative date as of Nov. 20 of 2000, but that’s not official or public yet," said the spokesperson who couldn’t or wouldn’t give out phone numbers for Canada Post officials who actually handle addressing.
"That’s not something that would be handled by Canada Post. It will be decided by the government of the Northwest Territories," she said.
Fortunately, a call to Canada Post’s head office in Ottawa and Mark Alexander proved more productive.
Rob McCloud, a CIBC spokesperson, said he wasn’t sure why the cheques Durey was requesting were not coming back with the proper address.
"It must be an oversight of some sort," McCloud said. He said that the printing company that produces CIBC’s cheques had told him they could print whatever Durey wanted, information that Durey himself was given when he spoke with the printers.
Nevertheless he hasn’t received cheques with the proper address.
"There’s absolutely no reason why this can’t be done." McCloud said.
An employee with the Royal Bank branch in Iqaluit said that she was able to get cheques printed for clients that say Iqaluit, Nunavut, NT."
A bank of Montreal employee in Iqaluit said Bank of Montreal clients could get cheques with "Iqaluit Nunavut," or "Iqaluit, NT," but not with "Iqaluit, NU."
"When you go into the computer program and try to enter NU it just tells you no such place exists," said the Bank of Montreal employee.
Mark Alexander said the delay was due to the Y2K bug and the cost of changing the addressing software.
Durey remains unimpressed.
"If I want a clown face on my cheque they should be able to print it for me," he said. "You can write a cheque on a napkin if you want."
He said that Canada Post should have been ready for the change when Nunavut was created.
"It’s been 15 months. What are they waiting for?" he asked.
But Durey might want to wait a little longer on getting new cheques anyhow. Alexander says Canada Post will create a new "X0B" postal code for one area of Nunavut.
The map has been drawn up for the location of the new postal code, but it hasn’t been made public yet Alexander said.
"Maybe I should buy my cheques 25 at a time?" Durey joked.