Transport Committee on Dec. 18th, 2013

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

To the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, I was astounded to learn that there is an individual who is sending 20,000 pieces of mail a year. That means they're going to face something like a $10,000 increase in their costs. This has to be extremely alarming to small businesses. Is there some position being taken by the federation on this issue?

[Daniel Kelly]

Well, we don't like the price increase and are suggesting that it be rejected, or sent back to the drawing board. At the very least we would like it to be phased in. I mean these are huge increases on small and medium-sized firms, many of which are not doing particularly well at the moment. We're relieved to see that their employment insurance and Canada Pension Plan rates are not going up, as an aside, but we are very worried that Canada Post could take the wind out of the sails of some businesses that are still very reliant on the mail.

That's not the only one. A lot of businesses use business reply mail as a way of doing business, and I've heard from some of them that business reply mail will have to be rethought. Canada doesn't have great options in the electronic payment space at the moment. So that is a concern. I see you're winding up your motion, Mr. Miller, so I'm happy to do that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

I was trying to be flexible there. Just one clarification—I don't know, Mr. Sullivan, if it was you who said it, or Mr. Hanes, or Mr. Brown—you talked about delivery to apartment buildings and logic would tell me that Canada Post employees are going to deliver to community mailboxes. I would think that they wouldn't be putting a community mailbox outside an apartment building, or condo building, but that they would use the ones existing there now.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

If I might, Mr. Chair—

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Certainly.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

—what I was suggesting is that a person with a disability might choose to live in an apartment building because that apartment building has an indoor delivery space, and that person doesn't have to go out and fend with the weather and the rest.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

I see.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

So there already is an advantage to that individual. I don't think Canada Post intends to switch that, although I don't know what the intention would be with the small fourplexes that exist all over Montreal and Toronto.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

I don't know the answer to that either. Thank you.

Mr. McGuinty, you have seven minutes.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks very much to all four gentlemen for being here.

Mr. Hanes and Mr. Brown, I was particularly moved by your testimony. There are now four and a half million Canadians living with a disability of one form or another. With an aging population, that number is rapidly increasing. As I mentioned earlier, about 10% to 11% of my own district now, of all my population, has one form of disability or another. I'm not sure to what extent this was factored in by Canada Post in its planning.

I was also very struck by your testimony about the connection between disability and poverty, which reminded me of the government's decision to eliminate the community access program, Mr. Chair, which was an Internet connectivity program in our public libraries that cost $10 million a year, one-quarter of what the government is spending now on economic action plan advertising every year. I was struck by the number of disabled citizens in the country who were previously accessing the Internet, because the Internet is expensive for people on ODSP in Ontario or those in other provinces, who go to libraries to be able to access the Internet and be connected.

But let me ask you, Mr. Hanes and Mr. Brown, were you consulted? Did Canada Post come to the Council of Canadians with Disabilities to seek input with respect to these changes?

[Bob Brown]

Not that I'm aware of. We could ask again, but I don't think we have.

[Roy Hanes]

No.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Kelly, if I could return to your testimony, thank you for your gentle warning, I guess, about unfunded pension problems, which led me to also remind myself and ask this question. Why was it that Minister Flaherty this week rejected out of hand enhancing and expanding the CPP, and for many of your members, by the way?

Let me ask you, Mr. Kelly: were you and your organization, the CFIB, consulted and asked for input and advice on this five-point plan?

[Daniel Kelly]

We have had regular meetings with Canada Post over decades. We did do some survey work. We have met with them. I can't tell you the exact last meeting...but on the specifics of the five-point plan, no. We've talked about some of these themes before. We've certainly talked to them about pensions before, but we were completely unprepared to learn about the price hike side in particular.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

I'm wondering what Canadians are to make, then, of the testimony earlier by the president and CEO of Canada Post, who claimed that there was extensive consultation. You're telling me that you represent, Mr. Kelly, 100,000 small businesses. Out of 1.085 million SMEs in this country, you represent about 10% of those, and you're saying that as the largest single small business representative group in the country, you were not consulted on this five-point plan?

[Daniel Kelly]

On the specifics of the five-point plan, no, but as I said, we've had ongoing meetings with them on a variety of subjects.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Well, so do members of Parliament. I'm just a little astonished by this. You don't find that particularly strange? Or you take it at face value? How do you react to that, given that you do represent—

[Daniel Kelly]

My reaction is that it is disappointing. We would have certainly lobbied against those moves.

The thing that we're reacting to with the greatest sensitivity is the massive, massive price hike. On that front, we were absolutely not consulted.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Have you had a chance to discuss this with Canada Post, Mr. Kelly, since this has been made public?

[Daniel Kelly]

On the morning of the announcement, we did have some back-and-forth with Canada Post officials, in which case they predicted accurately that we wouldn't like the price hike side of the equation, hoping that we would support other aspects of the plan, which is true. Some of the cost reduction measures do meet with the support of some of our members, but we were in a big scramble when the announcement came out and we started getting a lot of phone calls, e-mails, and tweets from small business owners across Canada.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

So do you take it, then, Mr. Kelly, on the basis of your conversations with Canada Post, that this is a done deal?

[Daniel Kelly]

That is how it was presented. Again, I wasn't the one taking the call specifically, but at no point was it suggested to me that this was an idea at Canada Post, but rather that this was the plan, and that, barring, I suppose, any cabinet intervention, this was how they were moving ahead.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Did you get any impression that Canada Post was receptive or open to hearing about more creative possibilities going forward, or is this one of these highly positional negotiating positions from which they simply announce to the world that this is what they're doing—take it or leave it—when, by the way, they don't even have an agreement with their own labour groups?

[Daniel Kelly]

To be fair to the corporation, we have had meetings over the years at which we have provided feedback and comments to them. There has been a two-way discussion on many aspects, some of which are covered in the five-point plan, but on the price-hike side there was no discussion with us about how they could make that easier, how they could phase it in, or whether it is appropriate to do it in this way or that way. None of that happened. To be fair, I have a lot of members who are upset about that aspect of this plan, and we plan to continue to raise it as we are doing in this venue.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

To put you on the spot, Mr. Kelly, because of the number of members you speak for, what two or three things would you like to see addressed? Have you had the chance yet—maybe you haven't had that opportunity—to think it through? If you have, what two or three things would you like to see addressed to make this plan better, to improve it?