Government Operations Committee on June 6th, 2006

[Deborah Bourque]

I'm afraid to say I don't know a whole lot about it myself. The basic premise is that these companies, re-mailers, are incorrectly described as small businesses--some of them may be small businesses--but there is a challenge going on right now against Canada Post's exclusive privilege applying to international mail. Re-mailers collect mail in Canada, ship it to another country, either the United States or to a developing country where there are lower postage rates, and then mail the mail back to Canada from there to take advantage of the lower postage rates.

One, this really undermines Canada Post's exclusive privilege. It takes revenues out of the public corporation. But two, many of those developing countries have lower postage rates under the universal postal union for very good reasons: to deal with the economic and social realities of those countries. We're seeing the re-mailers take advantage of that to make a profit. Again, it's a situation where private competitors are attacking Canada Post's exclusive privilege without being prepared to take on the universal service obligations Canada Post is bound by.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Thank you very much.

We'll go to Monsieur Proulx.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Good morning, Mrs. Bourque. Good morning, Mr. Bickerton.

I'm very happy you're here this morning because I've had a problem for a few years and I hope you're going to help me solve it . I'm sure you're aware of members of Parliament's privileges with regard to what we call householders. We are allowed four a year. I'd like to know from you if your members consider householders first-class mail or whatever other class there might be--third class or fourth class or whatever, junk mail. I'm sure in some ridings, not held by Liberals, of course, it would be considered anything but householder. Is it first-class mail?

[Deborah Bourque]

I don't like to use the term “junk mail”. I don't consider advertising mail and householders to be junk mail. They're not first-class mail, but they certainly are the future.

Advertising mail contributes significantly to the revenues of Canada Post, and advertising mail is more and more the bulk of the mail carried in our members' mailbags. I should say we need to find ways to make the delivery of householders easier, safer for our members, because to be frank with the committee, a lot of our members see householders as a real pain in terms of how they deliver them.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Excuse me. When you're talking of householder, you're actually referring to our mail-outs, which we call householders.

[Deborah Bourque]

I think your mail is considered first-class mail.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

When I'm talking of a householder, this is the term we use under our parliamentary privileges.

[Deborah Bourque]

It's the franking privileges; you don't have to pay postage.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

We have franking privileges on all our mail, but we are also allowed, four times a year....

[Deborah Bourque]

Yes, that's considered a householder.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

That's considered a householder; therefore, it's not first class.

[Deborah Bourque]

No. First-class letter mail is stamped mail in an envelope that requires 51¢ postage. I don't know if it's still called first-class letter mail.

It's not. It's called “the communications product”, as opposed to the “distribution product”, which are the parcels.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Therefore, my householder I send out four times a year is not considered whatever you want to call it, first-class mail or whatever.

[Deborah Bourque]

Right.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

That would explain why some of your members choose not to deliver them. Why don't they?

[Deborah Bourque]

The only real difference in the handling of first-class letter mail and the handling of householders is that there's a different delivery standard.

There's a clean-floor policy, which says that the letter carrier has to take all of the first-class letter mail that's in their case out when they leave for the day. With the householder mail or advertising mail, they're given three days. They take a third of that mail each day, because of the load, the overburdening.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

I appreciate that, but what gives them the right to decide not to deliver them?

[Deborah Bourque]

They don't have the right to decide not to deliver them, and if they fail to deliver householders, Canada Post will fire them.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Do you as a union have ways of controlling quality of your members' work or services?

[Deborah Bourque]

No. That's management's job, to manage the workplace.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

You do not monitor the quality of their work?

[Deborah Bourque]

We have supervisory staff in the workplace. Our members are working; they don't have time to monitor their co-workers. Certainly if we see real service issues, if we see trends that we think are really going to have an impact on service, then we talk to our members about that, but it's certainly not our role in the workplace to do that.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Let's take another example. Let's take the example in election time of what is called a voter's card, which is a very small-sized sort of postcard. When they go into apartment buildings, are your members supposed to deliver these to each and every individual mailbox? I'm not talking about doors on 15 floors; I'm talking about mailboxes within a mailroom. Are they supposed to slip them in the mailboxes?

[Deborah Bourque]

Yes.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Why do they take the liberty of leaving them in a package on the floor?