A new state-of-the-art parcel sorting facility in Scarborough named after the first Black letter carrier in the City of Toronto

BY PAUL JUNOR

There is a new state-of-the-art parcel sorting facility in Scarborough in honour of Albert Jackson, the first Black letter carrier in the City of Toronto. He started as a letter carrier in 1882 and worked for 36 years until his death in 1918.

The facility will be a key hub for the company’s national network and improve service for Canadians when it officially opens in 2023. The new facility will cost approximately $470 million and will be at 1395 Tapscott Road in Scarborough.

Details of the facility include:

• The building is 585,000 square feet roughly the size of the six Canadian football fields.
• It will be able to sort more than 60,000 packages per hour – 50% more than Canada Post’s Gateway facility in Mississauga, the company’s largest parcel plant.
• The facility will be able to process more than one million packages a day at full capacity.
• It will be Canada Post’s first zero-carbon building and the largest industrial project in Canada with the zero-carbon building standard designation.
• The facility is under construction and is expected to be operational in early 2023.

Doug Ettinger, Canada Post President and CEO described special features about the facility. “It will be the largest and greenest parcel sorting facility in the Greater Toronto Area. In addition, it will improve service, reduce our environmental footprint and enhance the overall work experience for our employees.”

He notes that with the increasing awareness of the importance of inclusion, it is now incumbent on companies like Canada Post to create an inclusive environment. He states, “We didn’t always live up to these ideals, but we’ve learned that it’s important to acknowledge our past, so we can do better.” It was one of the reasons why they decided to name the facility after Albert Jackson.

There were several members of Albert Jackson’s family at the naming ceremony on Thursday, May 12^th, 2022. One of his grandsons, Lawrence Jackson told the crowd, “I couldn’t be more proud of what Albert Jackson started. If he were alive today, working from the post office the buttons would just jump off his jacket because he loved postal workers, he loved his job, and the people who supported him. He had a dream and the dream has come true. His dream was to become something. He said, ‘We are equal, and we are going to be treated equal.” 

Albert Jackson was previously recognized with a poster in 2013, a plaque in 2017 and a commemorative stamp in 2019.Anyone interested in learning about the Albert Jackson Processing Centre can learn more at  www.canadapost.ca