Government Operations committee  I'll give a response in two parts. First, recognizing that Canada Post is one of the largest organizations in Canada, with nearly 70,000 employees across 5,600 locations from coast to coast to coast, we do have regular touchpoints and meetings with them on a biweekly basis, or sometimes even on a weekly basis, to discuss the numerous issues and opportunities that Canada Post is facing.

Government Operations committee  Obviously that is a challenge in terms of the number of post offices, including from the moratorium, that have closed. As you indicated, it is 600 over the course of the last 30 years. Those are the things that are kind of explored through our conversations with Canada Post in terms of raising those challenges and areas that they need to be able to focus their attention on, in terms of making sure they're maintaining service to rural Canadians.

Government Operations committee  Very quickly, a number of options are available to ministers of the Crown in terms of their dialogues with Crown corporations. We talked about the letter of expectation being one of them. The other one is obviously just encouragement, which is what we do within PSPC when we speak with Canada Post in making sure that the board of directors is aware of its obligations in terms of service delivery.

Government Operations committee  In the brief time that I have, the letter of expectation sets the expectations in terms of the board, so obviously it typically tends to have language that is fairly strategic or policy-oriented in nature.

Government Operations committee  In terms of the issue of privacy, obviously the Privacy Commissioner has issued a report to Canada Post that highlighted concerns and recommendations. As was indicated today, Canada Post has undertaken activities and steps to be able to address the recommendations of the Privacy Commissioner.

Government Operations committee  All right. The board of directors and the senior management group are responsible for ensuring that the organization does everything possible to deliver services that are in line with current service expectations. That will factor into our conversations with Canada Post regarding the future.

Government Operations committee  Adherence to the rural moratorium is part of the service charter, and Canada Post provides updates in terms of its compliance with the service charter on an annual basis to the minister through its annual reports. In that regard, my team and I take a look at the annual report and provide a secondary view for consideration by the minister.

Government Operations committee  Rural Canada, over the last 30 years, has changed fairly importantly. One of the things that was noted is that some communities that were rural 30 years ago are no longer rural. Gatineau is actually still on the list as a rural community. I don't know that many would consider Gatineau to be rural.

Government Operations committee  As mentioned, the Canadian Postal Service Charter is subject to review every five years. The review was initiated this past year and is ongoing. As you may have picked up from the answers given by our Canada Post colleagues, the charter hasn't changed since 2009. The principles set out in the charter and the services Canada Post must provide to Canadians are relatively stable.

Government Operations committee  In response to your first question, about wanting more details on the activities, the first thing I would say is that I have to respect Canada Post's independence. As the Canada Post officials mentioned, the corporation's annual report will be released in the next three weeks, if I'm not mistaken.

Government Operations committee  Again, the department has undertaken a number of activities, including—as I mentioned before—speaking with other departments and agencies in terms of whether there may be opportunities for synergies of activities between Canada Post and other federal organizations, as well as encouraging Canada Post to look at alternative activities when it comes to maintaining financial viability.

Government Operations committee  Canada Post undertook a number of community hubs on a pilot basis in order to be able to see, one, whether they bring benefits to the local communities, including indigenous communities, and two, to be able to test out their business model in terms of the costs of operating these hubs and whether their level of revenue or return on investment is different from what a traditional post office would provide.

Government Operations committee  Obviously the issue of housing has generated a lot of attention. Within that context, all federal departments and agencies are looking to see what they can do to help advance housing. In that context, we have been having conversations with Canada Post to see whether there may be opportunities in some of their portfolio and whether that could be leveraged for housing, recognizing, of course, that Canada Post is an operational organization in nature.

Government Operations committee  In the 16 seconds that are left, we do take a look at the top 12 or 15 other comparable countries. Their post offices are all facing the same challenges as Canada Post, so we're learning from them.

Government Operations committee  While I can't speak to the ministerial level, at the officials level we have been having conversations with a number of other departments and agencies, including colleagues from the rural area, to be able to explore options that may be available or to generate ideas that might be considered by Canada Post in moving forward and dealing with some of the challenges that have been discussed during today's appearance.