Evidence of meeting #33 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was mail.
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
September 29th, 2016 / 4:05 p.m.
Brad Pareis Member, Canadian Union of Postal Workers, As an Individual
I'm going to be less economical. I have a statement here that I'm going to read.
My names is Brad Pareis. I'm a letter carrier with Canada Post as well as an officer in my local union, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers. In more than 22 years of service with Canada Post, I have worked in five provinces, nine cities, and many depots.
Today I'd like to reflect briefly on the working paper entitled “Canada Post in the Digital Age”. It appears that the model of the study paper is largely built upon reductions for savings as opposed to additions for profits. I believe the public doesn't need a service that mimics FedEx, UPS, or DHL, but rather a post office with a broader scope. What such a post office delivers are things urgently needed by smaller communities across Canada: jobs and services.
Well-paying jobs with pensions return money to small communities during an employee's working years and after retirement. Indeed, the middle class is built upon such jobs. Services help to retain people within these small communities and to strengthen them, reducing out-migration and increasing livability. To attain these goals, Canada Post must be conceptualized in a different way than has been done recently—as a truly public service with the good of the people of Canada at the forefront.
The task force identified some options that it did not quantify, and some of these are worth investigating at length, beginning with Canada Post's governance.
It's a crown corporation, with a mandate to provide affordable, universal public postal service, but it's also a company saddled with a CEO from the private sector and 22 vice-presidents in a top-heavy structure that seeks to reduce the size and compensation of its workforce and service to the public. It's something like a Frankensteinian monster.
The postal service is de facto being run as if it were a for-profit private corporation, and jobs and service are being adversely affected. A radical restructuring of the upper management scheme of the corporation could result in millions of dollars of savings and a new approach to delivering services.
Conversely, labour costs are congruent with a public service that returns money to the Canadian economy and not to foreign ownership à la FedEx, DHL, etc. The supposed pension deficit is, however, a red herring that causes undue panic in uninformed members of the public. Mr. Wilson might be one example. This test is not an indicator of the plan's health, as the surplus in the plan's going-concern column is. The pension plan's long-term viability would be solidified by avoiding a large reduction in the labour force currently employed at CPC. Considering the delivery efficiencies found—there's more on that below—this means more employment at CPC in non-collection and non-delivery functions, such as postal banking.
In CPC's self-commissioned report, postal banking was seen as a win-win, but this same report was subsequently buried. Numerous other postal administrations are able to use successful postal banking businesses to cross-subsidize their delivery services and enable them to provide universal service.
Certainly it fills a social need, especially in the far north and in small communities either abandoned or never served by the big banks. Healthy competition in the banking sector would also result in reduced user fees for the Canadian public, and a postal bank would surely provide paper statements free of charge.
Postal banking ties in with the concept of Canada Post's becoming community hubs, as do other ideas, such as contracting in of streamlined delivery effected by electric or hybrid purpose-designed delivery vehicles optimized for Canadian conditions. Charging stations situated at post offices could serve these vehicles as well as those of the general public. A post office with longer operating hours and Saturday opening no longer needs the backup of a retail postal outlet and thus also sheds hours in preparation and depot transfers between offices. Efficiency is gained through centralization and having all functions under one roof.
For true delivery efficiency, the motorized mail courier concept should be embraced—that is, a motorized delivery agent should perform all the duties of local collection and delivery, including delivery of all parcels, courier items, letter mail, flyers, and street letter box collection. The delivery pattern would remain door to door for this type of service, which is preferred by the vast majority of the public.
Significant investment in the motorization of all delivery personnel would open new possibilities in service delivery. The report mentions the delivery of legalized marijuana. This would add to the pilot project by the LCBO to deliver alcohol to Ontario addresses, although not necessarily to dry reserves. This service could be adopted by other provinces and territories and could be rounded out by services such as last-mile delivery of other courier companies' product and on-demand pickups by delivery agents within a prescribed geographic area.
The embrace of increased job and service possibilities could become the hallmark of Canada Post in the digital age, where the physical delivery of services is still a profitable necessity.
Thank you for bearing with me.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Thank you.
I have to make what I suppose is a bit of an extraneous comment here: I applaud you.
As one who speaks a lot for a living—and many of us around this table are in the same position—sometimes when we have to speak before an organization and they tell us we have five minutes or 10 minutes to speak, we prepare a speech and we go over by two or three minutes. As an old toastmaster who comes come from the Toastmasters service club delivery program, I have to tell you that you were at four minutes and 59 seconds for delivery. That was an excellent job, sir.
In any event, we'll now go into the question-and-answer portion of the meeting.
We'll start with Madam Ratansi. You have seven minutes.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
Thank you both for being here.
Mr. Parkes, you are from a small community of roughly a thousand people, you said, and it's a retirement community.
4:10 p.m.
President, Vermilion Bay, Happy Go Lucky Seniors Club
Yes, it's a small community, but it's divided into three different locations. It's Minnitaki, Eagle River, and Vermilion Bay. Don't ask me how it ever got there, but that's the situation.
It's really spread out. There are some farming areas. We're right on beautiful Eagle Lake. There are 17 or 18 lodges on there. Years ago, before I moved there, I think it was quite involved in the wood industry, etc. It was quite a vibrant community. As time passed, we've lost a few things that are necessary to keep our community together.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
Is the population generally seniors? You said it's a retirement community.
4:10 p.m.
President, Vermilion Bay, Happy Go Lucky Seniors Club
We have some senior residences in both Eagle River and in Vermilion Bay. I'm also the chair of the housing there. We're trying to get some money from the government to build another one. That's a tough chore.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
Do they get mail delivered to their door, or do they have to go to community mailboxes?
4:10 p.m.
President, Vermilion Bay, Happy Go Lucky Seniors Club
They have to go to the post office.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
So the changes that Canada Post are recommending do not really affect you in terms of door-to-door delivery.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
With regard to the other changes, we will work on that.
Are there any services that you think the community could benefit from, extra services that Canada Post or the post office could provide?
4:10 p.m.
President, Vermilion Bay, Happy Go Lucky Seniors Club
You know, we haven't had any complaints about the service we have.
The biggest concern, and it has been out there for the last few years, ever since they started putting up the boxes in other communities, is that we would lose the post office. That's the big concern.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
Fair enough.
Mr. Pareis, how many jobs are you talking about in the community that you serve as a carrier?
4:10 p.m.
Member, Canadian Union of Postal Workers, As an Individual
With regard to direct delivery jobs, there are six letter carriers, one of which is part time.
We do have some contracted work as well. There is somebody who does parcel delivery and delivers mailbags on the street. There's an opportunity to bring that work into the post office.
4:10 p.m.
Member, Canadian Union of Postal Workers, As an Individual
Oh, gosh, it's 8,000 for the city.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
The charter of Canada Post says that it should be sustainable and provide secure services. When we talk about financial sustainability—you must have heard the previous discussions—there are ways of skinning the cat, in the accounting way.
How would you manage? You talked about some additional services that Canada Post can provide that would make it more sustainable. We've been told that the management hasn't thought outside the box. Give us some outside-the-box thinking, like delivering community power or things that you've talked about.
4:15 p.m.
Member, Canadian Union of Postal Workers, As an Individual
First of all, I would dispute that the financial sustainability of Canada Post is as in danger as management would have people believe. The projections are based on losses they say they're having.
If you look over the past decade, you will see that Canada Post has returned about a billion dollars to the government in taxes and dividends and whatnot. I don't think we're in as much danger of being unsustainable as is being put out there.
However, I think we could do a lot more in terms of what we deliver. I mentioned a couple of those things: legalized marijuana, alcohol. Not only that, there is the last-mile delivery of competitors' products, which we already do, but we could enter into all kinds of different agreements with those competitors because they do not deliver to rural areas.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
So UPS or FedEx would come and drop off their boxes to you guys?
4:15 p.m.
Member, Canadian Union of Postal Workers, As an Individual
This is already done locally. We have Purolator items dropped at our back door that we actually continue on with. In our regular mail stream we have DHL items and items from other courier companies.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
You're saying that having your infrastructure in place would give you the competitive advantage, and you want to expand on that.