Transport committee  I will speak in French. Mr. Chair, I would like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to present the views of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, or CUPW. We represent the thousands of letter carriers who, every day of the week, provide door-to-door mail delivery to milli

Finance committee  Yes.

Finance committee  Yes, that's the last estimate they had for Canada Post.

Finance committee  No. We have 54,000 members. We represent people in urban areas and we now represent people in rural areas. We have 54,000 members It's clear that the mail volume went down during the years. I said that in my presentation. There was a loss in 2008-2009. But the people working at

Finance committee  No, the mail volume is down. One of the big impacts on the mail volume has been the fact of the financial and economic crisis.

Finance committee  It's not about exclusive privilege. The exclusive privilege is the letter. The big corporations came in within the last 20 years. They're competing on the parcel industry, overnight delivery, and that type of work. They are competing directly with Canada Post. They're in the co

Finance committee  In some ways, that would be the view of Canada Post. They say they will compete with them. But at the same time, it's part of the exclusive privilege. Why not keep it in the exclusive privilege and give it to the private sector and compete with them? That's the irrational part

Finance committee  In actual fact, the $60 million to $80 million represents Canada Post's losses. This is a decline in revenue of $60 million to $80 million for Canada Post. That money goes directly into the hands of the remailers. This is revenue that should enable Canada Post to maintain the uni

Finance committee  Yes, absolutely.

Finance committee  Remailing is already being done. These businesses are acting outside the law. They will be officially recognized after the bill is passed. They will expand across the entire sector. This sector consists mainly of five or six large businesses. They don't necessarily represent thou

Finance committee  The legality issue was raised with the Conservative Party. The court decision is currently set aside until December 2010. Perhaps that's why these companies are actively working to change the law.

Finance committee  You probably have more indicators than we do on the subject. We're obviously here to invite the opposition parties to take a firm position.

Finance committee  We invite all the opposition parties to take a firm position on this matter. We've had discussions with the people from the parties and this isn't the first time we've discussed this issue. We did it with regard to Bill C-14 and Bill C-44. We went across the country to meet with

Finance committee  It was simply one of the arguments raised by Key Mail Canada and Spring Canada when they appeared before the court. They said that the English version of the Canada Post Corporation Act was different. According to the English version, the perception was that they in fact were en

Finance committee  In our presentation, we talk about the Canadian International Mail Association. It's an organization representing remailers as such. The act was changed on the international side, for example, to allow remailing to be done. Then there was the court case starting in 2004. It was