Bill C-14 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Canada Post Corporation Act

This enactment amends the Canada Post Corporation Act to modify the exclusive privilege of the Canada Post Corporation so as to permit letter exporters to collect letters in Canada for transmittal and delivery outside Canada.

Canada Post Corporation Act

[Lawrence Cannon, Conservative, Minister of Transport]

moved that Bill C-14, An Act to amend the Canada Post Corporation Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, this is a government committed to helping Canadian businesses compete internationally.

In Canada we have businesses involved in what is called remailing. Remailing is a business that most hon. members are probably not aware of. Indeed, remailers collect mail destined for international locations from large, commercial mailers. The remailer, or consolidator, then ships the mail outside of Canada to another country, a country with cheaper postal rates, ideally, a country that has been designated as a developing country by the Universal Postal Union.

The Universal Postal Union is an agency of the United Nations. It has been in existence since the late 1800s. Today, it has close to 200 members and deals with postal issues. It does not get involved in domestic postal matters. Its role is to act as a primary forum for cooperation among postal sector players. It actually sets the rules for international mail exchanges and makes recommendations to its members, “To stimulate growth in postal volumes and to improve the quality of service for customers”.

It was the Universal Postal Union that established a single postal territory for the exchange of international mail, which obviously is very necessary. This means that when we are mailing a letter out of the country, we can buy an international stamp to put on that letter.

Canada Post would keep the revenue from that stamp, but it would be a different postal administration delivering that letter. It is that other postal administration that is incurring the bulk of the cost for the delivery of the letter.

Therefore, under the Universal Postal Union system of international exchange of mail, Canada Post would need to compensate the country of delivery. This compensation is called a terminal due.

The Universal Postal Union has classified its member countries as industrialized or developed versus those that are developing. Obviously different countries fit into different categories. This classification affects the rate of terminal due a country is eligible to receive from another country for mail it has received and the rate it is obliged to pay another country for mail that it sent out.

It is a complicated issue, but remailers do not have to pay terminal dues and are therefore able to offer lower rates than Canada Post. The Universal Postal Union also allows remailing. There are other countries that allow remailing. However, Canada does not.

A few years ago Canada Post took a large number of remailers to court. The courts have rightly ruled, in reading the exclusive privilege of Canada Post, that remailing is an infringement upon Canada Post's exclusive jurisdiction. This exclusive privilege was granted to Canada Post through its legislation. This is legislation that was passed in the House of Commons over 20 years ago when the Canada Post Corporation Act was first enacted.

Since the exclusive privilege is set out in the act, the only way to adjust this exclusive privilege is to amend the act. It is only Parliament that can change provisions of the act, and only after public debate and discussion will that change be made.

The government is pleased to have introduced Bill C-14, An Act to amend the Canada Post Corporation Act, and the purpose of this bill is to remove all outgoing international mail from Canada Post's exclusive privilege. This would actually enable remailers to operate in Canada without infringing on Canada Post's exclusive privilege. They would no longer be breaking Canadian law. They would no longer be at risk of a legal challenge.

Although the bill is proposing something broader than just remail, its net effect on Canada Post is not expected to be any different. Indeed, the business model of remailers is to collect large volumes of mail from commercial companies. It is not interested in collecting mail from you, Mr. Speaker, nor I.

They offer Canadian businesses lower postal rates. This actually reduces the cost of those companies. This reduces the cost of their goods or services to Canadians, to consumers, which is ultimately a good thing for Canadians. This results in lower costs to the ultimate consumer of the goods or service.

In fact, there used to be many federal government departments and agencies that used the services of remailers for their mail going overseas. They had shopped around to find the lowest rates so that they could make effective use of taxpayers money.

The proposed legislation is not intended to allow the mail to come back into Canada and that is very clearly a difference that should be re-explained. The addressee of the letter is to be in a foreign country. We are not touching domestic mail. The addressee is to be outside of Canada. Remailers that attempt to send mail back into Canada will still be in contravention of the exclusive privilege of Canada Post after amended.

We are not proposing to let other postal sector players put stamps on their mail while it is in Canada. Some other countries also allow an Extraterritorial Office of Exchange, which is defined by the Universal Postal Union as:

--an office or facility, operated by or in connection with a postal operator, outside its national territory, on the territory of another country. These are offices established by postal operators for commercial purposes to draw business in markets outside their own national territory.

If a stamp is put on a letter while in Canada, it should have a Canada Post approved stamp. If Canada is to allow these ETOE's, or the Extraterritorial Offices of Exchange, there should be a licensing regime associated with it. We are not going there with this proposal. We are not allowing other countries to operate postal outposts in Canada. We want to help Canadian businesses compete internationally and we are attempting to do that with this legislation.

The government has studied the issue. Canada Post has told us that it estimates it is currently foregoing revenues in the amount of $50 million to $80 million a year. This is an estimate based on what it has seen as a trend in its revenue stream since new rules were put in place by the Universal Postal Union in 2001. Canada Post does not know for sure how much business it has been losing to remailers operating illegally in Canada.

On the other hand, the industry itself has made claims of it being millions of dollars to hundreds of millions of dollars. Because the courts have ruled remailing as unlawful, we cannot get data or information from the industry members that can be validated. These are small businesses often, and some large businesses, and usually located in places such as Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal.

Both estimates from Canada Post and from the industry itself are significant. They are also not very close. Some of the difference can be accounted for given that they are based on different premises and, of course, different expectations.

The Canada Post estimate represents the impact on Canada Post itself and is not a measure of the industry. The industry estimate is more of an estimate of economic impact as it includes supporting businesses such as envelope manufacturers and print shops throughout the country, as I mentioned.

Should this legislation get enacted, Canada Post estimates losing another $45 million to $50 million a year, so there are financial implications. Its employees will worry that this is a first step toward privatization. Let us be clear. This government will not privatize Canada Post and there are no plans to do so.

Canada Post is a very large institution. It is one of the largest employers in Canada. It has one of the largest retail networks in Canada. It provides services to Canadians from coast to coast to coast. Some would argue that it is indeed a Canadian icon.

I would argue that in rural communities in my constituency there is no federal institution that is more important to my constituents than Canada Post. That is why this government is taking positive action for Canadians.

There are many issues and challenges facing this corporation. It would be easy to get sidetracked on any number of these issues. We just need to ask the previous members of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities. They had some discussions on remailers, as my friend across the way will confirm.

The members tabled motions and amendments to those motions. At the end, they reported back that they wanted time to study the issue. This government has decided that it has done enough studying. The government has decided it is time to take action and positive action will be taken.

The bill itself is targeted to this specific issue. We do not want to get sidetracked in our goal to address this issue. Indeed, we also do not want changes to Canada Post to be widespread. This government is not interested in destroying Canada Post or privatizing it. We are not opening up our domestic mail services.

This is not the first step in the privatization of Canada Post. I have said that three times. I can assure the House that we are sincere on that.

We are enhancing competition in the outbound international mail business to benefit Canadians, to benefit small businesses across this country, and we are going to continue to support Canadian businesses.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my question will be simple.

The parliamentary secretary is right, as the issue was raised within the Standing Committee on Transportation, Infrastructure and Communities. That committee is responsible for this bill. The Bloc Québécois understood that everyone had also agreed that a public study would be carried out before the bill was introduced. However, the government decided to force the issue once again and to introduce the bill without any public debate. Clearly we can never accept this.

Canada Post's profits last year totalled $49 million. Canada Post told us that, in order to be able to guarantee service everywhere, in all municipalities and to all mailboxes, to guarantee that every Canadian would receive their mail at home, Canada Post needs to have precisely this exclusive privilege.

If Canada Post were to lose $50 million to $80 million, that would put it in a deficit and this would also create problems for those who receive the mail.

When the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities said he wanted to make it clear that Canada Post would never be privatized, he also said that all citizens would continue to receive their mail. Yet, once Canada Post has finished its review of all mailboxes, 30% of Canadians will no longer receive their mail at home. But that is the Conservative government for you.

Thus, I would like to ask the parliamentary secretary if his final goal is not to completely reduce all home mail delivery.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Mr. Speaker, absolutely not. Nothing could be further from the truth. This government is the only government in recent history that has stood up for rural Canadians and mail delivery across this country. We will continue to do so.

Let us be clear as well that this is business that currently Canada Post has not been receiving and has not received for approximately 30 years, at least the majority of it. Canada Post actually thought that it did not have the exclusive privilege that covered this. Indeed, until recently Canada Post did not even take any court steps to do this. The impact on Canada Post should be small indeed.

I appreciate the member's input because he works very hard on the committee. Certainly, we will have a full and honest debate at committee. We will deal with this and hear from the public and all members.

The key is that this government will continue to support small businesses. We will continue to do what is in the best interests of consumers and in the best interests of Canadians.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask the parliamentary secretary if he could comment on a letter that came from minister Cannon's office, dated July 25, 2006?

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

The member for Hamilton Centre should know that we do not name other members of the House, but only by their titles, especially from a former deputy speaker.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Touché and I apologize. You are correct, Mr. Speaker. We will keep a running score.

It is a letter from the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, dated July 25, 2006 which said:

The activities of international remailers cost Canada Post millions of dollars each year and erodes the Corporation's ability to maintain a healthy national postal service and provide universal service to all Canadians.

My question is simple: What has changed?

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it would be to the member's advantage and certainly to the advantage of Canadians if he would take the opportunity to sit in on some of the standing committee meetings when we will be dealing with this particular piece of legislation.

What the letter was referring to was the lost opportunity that Canada Post did not have because Canada Post has not had this business for years. As a result of that, really there is no loss to it on a direct basis, only on a lost opportunity basis.

We are looking at what is best for Canadians, for Canadian consumers, and what is best for Canadian businesses. That is what this government is going to move forward with, what is best for Canadians.

[Louise Thibault, Independent, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with my two colleagues who asked questions. I am very surprised by the rather twisted logic used by the parliamentary secretary to present this issue.

If I understood correctly, at the beginning he said, “This government will not privatize Canada Post”.

And now he is saying that Canada Post did not have the revenue in the first place, so it is not losing anything.

What interests me and people from my region, my riding and throughout Quebec is the fact that more money would perhaps mean more services.

As is currently the case in rural areas, there are safety restrictions for employees and there is a lack of revenue to keep post office boxes close to people in rural areas.

To meet employee safety needs, post office boxes must be further away, and we are racking our brains to find solutions. I must give credit to the Canada Post workers in my area who are doing their best.

But I would like the parliamentary secretary to tell us why more revenues in this case would not be interesting.

The only interesting thing, as with local telephone service, is to deregulate and maybe one day privatize. But I have some serious doubts about that.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Exactly, Mr. Speaker, and that is why some changes are necessary, but this will not affect domestic mail delivery anywhere in Canada. This will not do so. In fact our Prime Minister and indeed the minister have taken very positive steps toward confirming that rural mail will be delivered to rural addresses right across Canada. Indeed, we want to continue to do that and go back to a place where we were before, to continue to provide great service to Canadians with this Canadian icon.

I am from a rural constituency. I can assure the member that nothing is more important to my rural constituents than Canada Post and the delivery of the mail. We will continue to do that and take positive steps to help Canadians.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Fort McMurray for his intervention and for explaining what this bill really does. I do not believe the Bloc and the NDP actually understand what the proposed legislation does. It actually involves one small clause which states:

The exclusive privilege referred to in subsection 14(1) does not apply to letters intended for delivery to an addressee outside Canada.

This does not in any way affect home delivery within Canada. I think that is pretty clear.

I would like to ask my colleague from Fort McMurray two questions. First, would he agree with me that the remailers are still doing business in Canada as they have done for the last 20 some years? Second, could he explain the context of this legislation and why it is we got to this point? Why is it that only two years ago suddenly Canada Post decided to take this to the courts to assert what had previously not been deemed an exclusive privilege, but today in accordance with that court ruling is deemed to be an exclusive privilege for Canada Post?

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

That was a great question, Mr. Speaker. The member is right. The NDP member who asked the question earlier has not been at the committee as long as I have been there and certainly is unaware of what is taking place with this particular piece of legislation.

Indeed, the member is correct. It will not affect domestic mail at all.

To be clear, I had in my office not six months ago members from an association of remailers who have been in business for anywhere from 15 to 25 years. They have been doing the same business day in and day out. They asked me what they were going to tell their employees when they went home. What were they going to say to them when they could not feed their families?

There are small businesses and employees across the country who get their livelihood from this particular type of business.

The member is correct. Canada Post did not have an issue with this for over 20 years; it was only recently that it did. Indeed, the government's position is that we are going to take the best steps forward to help Canadians, to help small business and to help the Canadian economy. We are doing that. This is one step toward that.

Let me be clear. This is not in any way going to privatize Canada Post. Indeed, it only affects outgoing mail. It does not affect domestic mail.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

Order. It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, Government appointments; the hon. member for West Nova, Equalization payments; the hon. member for York West, Automobile industry.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was beginning to wonder whether we were actually going to get to the bill itself. If members do not mind my repeating what the last questioner asked in the debate, it is about a very small element, section 15 of the Canada Post Corporation Act, to be amended by adding the following after subsection (2):

The exclusive privilege referred to in subsection 14(1) does not apply to letters intended for delivery to an addressee outside Canada.

That is all. That is what the bill is about. We have heard for the last 20 some minutes what the bill does not intend to do, which is fine. I do not think that we in this House should be worried about what it is not intended to do, but rather what it is intended to do. From my perspective, as one of those members referred to by the previous speaker on the committee, this amendment to the Canada Post Corporation Act is really intended to protect the jobs of those small businesses that operate within the parameters of the Canada Post Corporation Act as they were interpreted until two years ago. That is all.

We can either agree that the jobs of people who have been engaged in legitimate business and the businesses that have been engaged in a legitimate environment are worthy of consideration and protection, or they are not. The moment we agree that those men and women have been engaged in activity that has been productive for them and their families and for the Canadian economy, then we must take an objective and positive disposition to this bill. Why do I say that?

In order to get a good comprehension of what we are talking about, we have to think in terms of the dimensions of the discussion. It is good to think in terms of dimensions of discussions in dollars and cents.

Canada Post's annual report for 2006 says that despite a strong economy, the letter mail product was essentially flat in 2006. There was no growth as far as Canada Post is concerned, but it is concerned about the competition from the small businesses and the men and women that they employ.

Let us re-examine that context once again. That same report says that consolidated revenues from operations in Canada Post reached $7.3 billion for an increase of 4.6% over the previous year. This is an environment where the letter mail business is flat, so it has increased by 4.6% its revenues which total $7.3 billion according to its consolidated statement.

Is there another number that fits in with that growth? What does a 4.6% increase mean? Again according to the statements in the annual report, it means $320 million of increased revenue. There is $320 million of additional revenue over the previous year in order to carry out its mandate, in order to guarantee the jobs of the men and women in rural Canada and in urban Canada and to deliver the kinds of service that Canada Post is mandated to deliver.

And when it falls short of its mandate, the Government of Canada, as I read the Canada Post Corporation Act, has always stepped in to ensure that any shortfalls would be guaranteed by the Canadian taxpayer, but that is not the case now. We are not talking about that now. We are talking about an increase of $320 million that has brought to complete revenues of $7.3 billion.

I do not think we ought to focus too much on this. It is a fabulous amount of money. It does not equal anything I have ever dreamed of owning. However, $7.3 billion means that, according to Canada Post, it is now one of the biggest employers in the country. In fact, it is proud to say that it was named as one of the top 100 employers in Canada for 2007 in Maclean's magazine. Things would appear to be going not too badly.

What is the competition for a $7.3 billion company that employs 55,000 people?

We heard the parliamentary secretary say a moment ago that the competition is a group of companies that send letter mail, pick it up and send it abroad, outside of Canada. In other words, they are not interfering with the exclusive privilege of sending mail within the country. In other words, they are not interfering with the mandate of providing that network of communication and jobs around the country. They are not interfering with the mandate to hoist the Canadian flag in communities all around the country so that we can see that our federation works. Those companies and those men and women who have been earning their jobs and their money legitimately, according to the parliamentary secretary who was repeating what Canada Post in its best estimates found to be the case, are a $45 million to $55 million competition.

In committee I pressed some of the remailers. I said that surely it cannot be just $45 million to $55 million. They allowed that maybe they might inch up to $60 million, maybe even $70 million. In any case, according to a very quick calculation on a BlackBerry or any computer we would find that $60 million of gross revenue for these small companies, compared to the $7.3 billion, is about .8 of 1%. That is less than 1%. That is the threat. That is the Trojan Horse that people are now beginning to bring forward. That is why I said that we cannot be talking about what the bill is not going to do; we have to talk about what it is intended to do.

What it is intended to do is to save the jobs of those people who are working for those companies that in their total represent less than $60 million compared to the big giant of $7.3 billion. Seven billion dollars and three hundred million dollars is what Canada Post earns.

If we are trying to save the jobs of those men and women, if we think that their value, their dignity, their right to work is at least as good and legitimate as anybody who works for Canada Post, then we do not have any problem with this bill, because Canada Post does not have any problem with the bill.

In fact, Canada Post, in addition to indicating that it grew its income by $320 million, really did say that the net income for the fiscal period ending December 2006 was $119 million. On revenues of $7.3 billion, it netted roughly $120 million. That $120 million net is at least twice the gross value of all those small companies and their employees who will punch the clock or do what they can to go to work every day to raise their families in an environment that is productive, dignified and meritorious of a Canadian dream.

The bill should be doing that and that is what I thought the government wanted to bring across to everybody. That is why this bill is so brief. It just simply says to let these people work. Where are they working, according to the parliamentary secretary? They are not working all over Canada so they can diminish the mandate of Canada Post to deliver a network of communication for all Canadians and to bring them together and bind this country tighter as one unit. No.

According to the parliamentary secretary and to the best estimates of Canada Post, we are talking about people who are engaged in businesses where this opportunity is practicable. In other words, they cannot compete anywhere else. They can only compete in three areas.

It appears that those three areas might be the greater Toronto area, might be metropolitan Montreal and might be greater Vancouver. Those are not three insignificant markets. They are very large and important but they also have the infrastructure required in order to make some of these very small businesses function.

There is no competition anywhere else. There is no competition for rural mail service in small communities where Canada Post might be a significant if not the most significant employer. There is no competition for a standard bearer for our Canadian presence, the point of contact between citizens and government around the country.

For 20-plus years the business has developed. Obviously it has not been such an overwhelming success as to make great inroads into the revenue stream of Canada Post because the revenue stream totalled $7.3 billion last year in an environment where the letter mail business was flat and these companies were not able to generate much more than $50 million.

I look at this again and ask what we should do as responsible parliamentarians. If we are concerned about the jobs of the men and women who work for these small businesses that operate here in Canada. Members will notice that I did not say they had to necessarily be Canadian owned, but that they receive investment and they do employ Canadians. What happens to the jobs of the people who work for these companies? Will they be absorbed by Canada Post, a company that is trying desperately to be as productive, as efficient and as competitive as any other industrial giant? I do not know. How would it do that?

If this business that Canada Post has just realized exists is labour intensive, and it would be labour intensive in places like Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver and non-existent anywhere else, will Canada Post absorb those jobs and create new ones so that we now can say, as responsible legislators, that we are not taking away the opportunity to earn a livelihood and create a future for oneself and one's family, but that in fact we are transferring the possibility from these small entrepreneurs to a state related organization?

If we could do that, that would be fine but, in a competitive environment, Canada Post will not absorb those jobs. It will ask its union members, which is CUPW, to take on any additional work. Does anyone know why? It is because the work represented by those small companies and their dutiful men and women who work every day to earn money to carry on with their livelihood for their families amounts to less than 0.8 of 1% of Canada Post's gross revenues.

Does anyone think for a moment that Canada Post will absorb all of those jobs and create more new jobs for every one of those people so that it can spend more? It will not do that at all. CUPW members will be asked to take on additional work, but not for more money, presumably, because in an efficiency driven environment it could not do that, but to do it for the same money.

What would be accomplished by driving out of business these companies that provide jobs for people's next door neighbours? It will not hurt people who are not from Toronto, Montreal or British Columbia's lower mainland. It will not hurt the member from Thunder Bay and it probably will not even bother the members from Ottawa. It will have an impact on people from the greater Toronto area, the greater Montreal area and the greater Vancouver area, where people are working diligently to make Canada a success.

What will happen? Will those people now be transferred from a job in one company to a Canada Post position? The answer is no. It will not happen.

As members of the House of Commons, our first obligation is to ensure that no legislation goes through the House that damages the potential available to any Canadian and, concomitant with that, the obligation to nurture an environment that gives Canadians that same opportunity.

If that is what will happen, then this legislation is but a very small step in the direction of a positive initiative that should not be apologized for. That is bad English form. We should not add in a preposition and leave it dangling. We should say that it is something that allows a productive activity to flourish in a legitimate environment. That is what this bill would do.

Mr. Speaker, do not let any member in the House confuse the positive aspects, the intentions of this bill, which came out of a committee that considered, deliberated and debated motions and said that we needed to structure legislation that does something positive, such as save jobs, nurture job creators and ensure that the infrastructure that we already have in place and, with all due respect, that is represented by Canada Post, be maintained. The bill took what the committee said and fashioned it in very simple terms, very brief legislation, and said that this was what we had to do.

I urge everybody to support this legislation.

[Joe Comuzzi, Conservative, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I compliment my colleague across for being so eloquent, as he usually is, on areas that affect all Canadians. He is in his usual good form. He is very succinct and gets right to the point. I could not help but be amazed, Mr. Speaker, that you were paying such rapt attention to the member, which adds to all of us in the chamber respecting your interest in this matter.

When the member talks about the displacement of people from one area, which is the remailers, and obviously some of them have already left Canada, I was not quite sure where he meant they would end up, in what employ, if in the postal business or some place else. I wonder if he would be kind enough, in his normal succinct way, to answer that question.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would love to answer that question. The hon. member gives me a compliment when he suggests that I have the entrepreneurial skills to take the considerations that are on the table for every one of those men and women who currently have a job and who are engaged in an enterprise that is giving them a remuneration with which they may or may not be content, but with which they are satisfied currently, and to replace that with something else.

I am a legislator. I wish I could say I was an entrepreneur, but all I know is that I have asked what will happen to their jobs if the actions that Canada Post was bringing upon them were to have great success. Canada Post could not guarantee that they would be absorbed as additional jobs in the Canada Post corporate plan, and the other companies, if they were forced to shut down, could not guarantee where they would go next. They would be at the mercy of most people who lose their jobs in an open market, out of luck.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to correct my colleague who sits with me on the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities. That is not what the committee recommended. The committee wrote a unanimous report asking Canada Post to defer its litigation until the committee had really studied the situation. That was the motion the committee passed unanimously.

The government has tabled a bill and maybe my colleague is in favour of it. There is a problem though: the committee asked the government for a chance, before the bill is tabled, to analyze the situation, have all the witnesses testify, and find out how many jobs are at stake.

The hon. member was talking about small businesses, but Canada Post talks about big corporations. Personally, I have met remailers who say they employ thousands of people.

I would like to know what the situation actually is in this industry. I also do not want the remailers to cannibalize Canada Post. As we know, Canada Post distributes its wealth in such a way that rural areas have equitable service. If Canada Post’s revenues were ever to decline too much, rural areas could be adversely affected, as they are right now. My Liberal colleague forgets this all too often. By the time Canada Post finishes its safety study, 30% of people will no longer have home delivery.

Could they not have suggested equipping the people who deliver mail in rural areas with small, more suitable trucks, as in the United States, in order to satisfy everyone? No, they decided instead that Canada Post is being deprived of income, before doing a study of the situation.

This is what I blame the Conservative government and my colleague for. Once more, they draw hasty conclusions without doing a real study. The committee’s purpose was to prevent Canada Post from proceeding with litigation that it could shut down. The Bloc Québécois agreed to this. However, we want a real study done before a bill is passed.

What is happing now is that the Conservatives have decided, with the support of the Liberals, that the businesses are right. This means in the end that some rural residents may well lose their delivery service because Canada Post has less income.

I hope my colleague realizes this. That is what I want to ask him. Does he realize that this change to Canada Post could affect rural mail service? He does not seem to realize it when I listen to him, but Canada Post is—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Eglinton—Lawrence.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member. We work quite well together in committee.

There are two parts to his question. The first concerns my interpretation of what was decided in committee. I do not want to put words in his mouth. I do not want to offend the intentions of my colleague or other colleagues who are members of the committee.

As far as Canada Post is concerned, as I said in my presentation, it is not a matter of eliminating or reducing the service provided under its mandate in rural areas to individuals who want and need Canada Post service where they live.

The reality is that newer neighbourhoods do not get the same type of service—note that I said type of service—but they do get service.

The issue is not about these remailers having an influence over the development of Canada Post service.

[Louise Thibault, Independent, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, for 20 minutes we heard the hon. member talk about what this bill is not. That is rather unusual. I want to talk about the fact that the legislation will remove a privilege from a crown corporation because it has never used the privilege and has just found out about it.

Once it discovers it, uses it and benefits financially, could it not use the revenue to benefit the public, given—as the hon. member just said—that a rural safety study is underway and we already know that some services in rural areas will be abolished? That was known; this is happening.

Why not allow Canada Post to earn more revenue?

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if I may, I would like to answer the question in English so that I can be sure to use the right words to answer it properly.

That would be for the government to respond. Government members have said that they have gone out of their way to give the kinds of guarantees that only government can give.

I was in opposition when the then Conservative government of the day started to close down rural post offices everywhere around the country. In fact, it did not make that distinction. It closed down post offices in urban centres and in mine as well.

There was a transformation of Canada Post. Should Canada Post get greater income? There is no guarantee that income from these remailers will go directly to Canada Post. There is none. The previous questioner asked me what I would do with the jobs of the people who work for these remailers. We cannot give them any guarantees, just like we cannot give Canada Post a guarantee that the $45 million, $50 million or $60 million that is represented by these enterprises will go directly into its coffers.

The essence of international remailers' business is that mail intended for foreign destinations will not go to Canada Post. It will go someplace else. The businesses have every right to pursue a business someplace else. I cannot constrain, and I do not think anyone else here can, the current customers to go to Canada Post. Were that possible, we might be having a different discussion.

Does Canada Post need more money to deliver in rural communities? I do not know. The consolidated revenue statement says that it made $120 million net last year. It did not ask us for permission to spend that money to improve rural service. Why would it? Canada Post also admits that the market for letters is flat. If Canada Post does not have any clients, what is it going to do?

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-14, to amend the Canada Post Corporation Act.

I will summarize it briefly by reading it. It is not a very complicated bill. It is probably one of the shortest bills ever introduced in this House. It has just one clause, a proposed addition to the act that reads as follows:

The exclusive privilege referred to in subsection 14(1) does not apply to letters intended for delivery to an addressee outside Canada.

It is important to grasp the history behind this bill to understand why it is being introduced in the House today. The English and French versions of the Canada Post Corporation Act had a terminology problem. The French version applied this exclusive privilege to letters for delivery to an addressee outside Canada, whereas the English version did not.

Because of this dichotomy, which was in place for over 20 years, remailers infiltrated the mail market. They take mail intended for destinations abroad from companies, put it in a container and send it to addressees via other countries that offer lower rates than Canada Post.

I believe that all those watching the debate on television understand why an exclusive privilege was granted to Canada Post. Among other things, it permits all citizens to receive their mail at their residence, no matter where they live in the great and vast province of Quebec or in the great and vast country of Canada. That is why the House of Commons passed, at the time, the Canada Post Corporation Act: to grant this exclusive privilege so that everyone can receive their mail at home no matter where they live.

Obviously, things have changed since then. As I was explaining earlier, remailers, among others, referred to the English version. Since they were already working in this area, they used it to justify forwarding other types of mail that were not letters. These companies were already in business and they decided to do the same with mail in general and to cite the English version in order to do business.

Three years ago, the Canada Post Corporation finally decided to turn to the courts. These are probably the types of questions that we, the Bloc Québécois would have liked to have asked both the Canada Post representatives and its employees as well as the remailers and their employees, in order to discover why Canada Post went to court three years ago. The courts found in favour of Canada Post and were prepared to issue injunctions against companies that were remailing letters abroad.

The committee, in its great wisdom, wanted to be able to carry out an in-depth analysis before the citizens working for these companies lost their jobs.

I am disappointed with both the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party for tabling a bill before taking a hard look at it. The purpose of the unanimous report presented by the Standing Committee on Transportation, Infrastructure and Communities was simply to ask Canada Post to stop legal proceedings until the committee carried out a thorough analysis of the matter. That was the purpose.

That goal was finally attained, and remailers were not completely satisfied, but they were fairly satisfied. In the short term, it meant that they did not have to lay off employees until we could conduct a thorough analysis.

Then the House was prorogued. People who take an interest in politics followed these events. All the discussions began again in Parliament. Finally, we have a new session, which is what the Conservatives wanted. The government decided to introduce a new bill before the committee could even hold its first meeting. In fact, the organizational meeting took place this morning. When the government prorogues the House, the committees start from scratch again. It takes 14 days after the members are chosen, which is too long. In short, most committees have been sitting for only a few weeks.

The government therefore decided to introduce a bill simply to put an end to Canada Post's exclusive privilege. The government decided to submit the bill to the House of Commons and make the committee work so that we could vote on this. This is clearly unacceptable, because we would have liked to guide the government.

It is very hard to pass amendments when the bill is only three lines long. The government knew exactly what it was doing. The bill that was tabled is only three lines long, and we will not be able to add a paragraph and a half or two paragraphs. That is impossible. This means that, theoretically, we will have to vote for or against this bill without ever having made any real analysis.

In committee, we will make every effort and use every possible means to call a full slate of witnesses, provided that the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party do not work together and decide to limit debate to one day only. Together, they have a majority, and they could decide to do that. In fact, they could just sweep the whole thing under the rug, so that we could never get to the bottom of things, if they decided that the whole matter was settled.

That is why I am a bit disappointed at the speech given by my Liberal friend, who finally seems to have decided that Canada Post is not going to lose any money.

But the Bloc Québécois is concerned. We think that the exclusive privilege is a sign of equality among the citizens of Quebec and Canada, and everyone has the right to have mail delivered to their home. This is why Canada Post was created. I do not like to use this word, but in the old days, it was the Queen's mail. But today, I must say, mail delivery has gone out the window, and the Queen as well, or at least the Queen's mail. Forget home delivery. Those days are over and here is the proof.

The parliamentary secretary, a nice fellow, explained that no one would lose anything. Forget that. It has already started, and 30% of people who receive home delivery will lose this service for safety reasons explained by Canada Post and its president.

There are solutions: in the United States, smaller and better adapted vehicles deliver mail to the door, etc. We could have made such an investment, but no, it was decided that 30% of the population would lose their home delivery for various reasons: size of the route, the way employees work with their traditional vehicle, the fact that they must get out on the side of the road, little space, speed, etc.

In any case, I am not making any of this up. Call any Canada Post official and he or she will say the same thing: 30% of people will no longer have home delivery.

Indeed, they will have to get their mail from the big, green boxes. And, as the Liberal member was saying earlier, all new residential developments have those green boxes. These new subdivisions may all have those green boxes grouped together in one place, but this is not the best solution. If they had really wanted to, home delivery service still could have been provided to Canadians, as it was in the past.

This service is being further and further reduced. We are concerned. The parliamentary secretary can get all worked up and say that Canada Post will never be privatized, but as soon as tempting to privatize Canada Post. There will be fewer employees and staff, that is, just what is needed to be able to privatize the corporation.

This is the Bloc Québécois' concern. Indeed, we do not believe the Conservatives. They said there would not be any impact and that there would always be rural mail. The minister got all worked up saying that nothing would be changed. Yet, within two years' time, 30% of citizens in rural settings will no longer receive their mail. That is the reality hidden behind the posturing of the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities.

Why should we believe him now, when he says that Canada Post will never be privatized? We cannot believe him any more than the public can believe him. Go and talk to those people who stand to lose their mailboxes and will be forced to go to community mailboxes. Ask them if they believe the minister. No one believes him anymore. He works for us every day, ensuring that we are elected, and we have no problem with this. This allows us to be re-elected, time and time again.

However, in certain respects, this is in no way an intelligent objective. It was decided that a crown corporation would be created and given an exclusive privilege, in order to ensure that all citizens in a large country such as Quebec or Canada would receive their mail at home. It was a laudable objective.

They pretend to listen, but then they cut services and brook no discussion about it. That is what the Bloc Québécois disagrees with. I am not saying that things would turn out any differently otherwise. The problem is that they decided to introduce a bill that cannot be amended. We will have no choice but to vote for or against the bill. It is only three lines long, so it will be practically impossible to amend. We will have to vote against the bill or for it. The government cannot say that it did not realize this. It has law clerks and knows exactly what it is doing.

All it wanted to do was present us with a fait accompli and ask us if we were for it or against it. That is exactly what committee members did not want to happen. I am having a hard time understanding my committee colleagues who were there at the time. We all wanted Canada Post to drop its case so that no jobs would be lost. We were against losing jobs, but we wanted a thorough analysis. That was our goal.

Now we have a bill that says,“You have no choice. You can talk about it all you want, but in the end, the point is, are you for it or against it?” If the analysis had been done before, we could have come up with a better, smarter solution that would probably have enabled Canada Post to protect its exclusive privilege while letting remailers keep their jobs. It could have happened. Some of our Liberal colleagues were even ready to do that. We had discussions. But none of that will happen now because the government decided to do things its way. I am disappointed that the Liberals agreed to that. I hope that we can have a debate about this in committee.

Canada Post has very healthy sales, but revenues are down significantly. It is important to understand that the Canada Post Corporation pays taxes in the provinces where it does business. It is a crown corporation, but it has to pay taxes, which is good. It is a corporate taxpayer like any other business. You have seen and will understand that a portion of these revenues goes to taxes. Then, because it is a crown corporation, Canada Post must pay a dividend to the federal government. In 2007, that dividend totalled $48 million. That means that it must turn over its surplus to the Government of Canada. It was decided that things would work that way, and I am not opposed to that.

But if the decision is made to decrease sales and if ever the goal was for Canada Post to earn $49 million or $50 million less net profit, what would be the reaction of the government, which would still want its dividend at year-end? Is this discussed in this bill? It is impossible. This bill can no longer be amended. All the legislative drafters will say that you cannot add anything that changes the substance of the bill. We will therefore not be able to discuss that.

This is the sticking point for the Bloc Québécois. The government cannot threaten something that has been in existence for generations and is likely the oldest service provided by the federal government across Canada. The mail is likely the oldest service. The government is attacking it directly, gently, simply by letting companies do what they want, without letting us ask questions, hold a real public debate or invite all the stakeholders. The government has done this by being both judge and defendant and saying that it is not important to Canada Post. It has revenues of $7 billion or $8 billion, but in the end only $49 million is paid in dividends to the federal government.

Imagine the spending. That is $119 million in net revenues and $49 million in dividends paid to the government. If sales are cut by $150 or $200 million, net revenues and dividends will drop, and we will be forced to cut other services to maintain the dividends for the government, which needs this money to do other things, as it does with employment insurance. It is dipping into the EI fund. The EI fund is not an independent fund. Citizens who make their contributions to EI make them into a fund here, in Ottawa, that is not independent. It is part of the consolidated fund, and the government needs that money to pay down the debt and invest in military equipment or the war.

That is a choice the Conservatives make. They certainly do not invest in the environment. That much we know. But they will happily invest in the oil industries or in military equipment. It is a choice. The problem is that they have decided to do the same thing with the dividends paid by Canada Post, and want more money to invest in military equipment and in oil resources, but not in services for the public.

There is not one Conservative member who can guarantee me that today, because there will be no debate on the subject. The debate will be held on three lines of a bill that will ask whether we are for or against allowing remailers to send letters outside Canada. We cannot make even the slightest modification. There will be no debate, and there is nothing we can do about it.

It is yes or no.

Since the Liberals and the Conservatives have already shown their colours, it will be yes to the bill right from the start. That is what is disappointing. The real debate will never be held, not in committee or in the House of Commons because we do not hear witnesses here.

The Conservatives way of handling this matter here in the House of Commons with this bill is very disappointing. In the previous session, before the Conservative government prorogued the House, that was not what the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities decided. There was a unanimous resolution in committee, which I will repeat so that everyone is clear, to the effect that Canada Post must not go any further and must end its dispute with the remailers so that no one would lose their job, until a full review of the situation had been done. This review was not done and will not be done.

The bill is so limited that all we can say is whether we are for or against having remailers distribute letters outside Canada. I maintain that this risks upsetting the balance of the postal service across Canada.

On that point, the Bloc Québécois will do everything in its power to shed light on this. We cannot allow the government, the Conservatives and the Liberals, to do this without putting up a fight to make people understand that this bill threatens public services. That is what we are going to do. You can count on the Bloc Québécois. Quebeckers who elected a Bloc majority in Quebec will be glad they have the Bloc Québécois to defend their points of view.

There is nothing rosy about this. Always saying yes to private companies, the way the Conservatives do, is very worrisome. We think it is also important to protect the service in all the regions of Canada. Quebec covers a lot of territory and the people in the rural areas are just as entitled as people in urban centres, to home delivery service. In the big cities, you get home delivery service and no one is jealous of that. You probably deserve it. You pay your taxes. Nonetheless, people in rural communities are also entitled to their service and mail delivery at home because they too pay their taxes. They are the equals of city dwellers.

As you can see, the Bloc Québécois will never tire of debating this injustice being perpetrated even as we speak. I repeat, Mr. Speaker, if you ask all those in charge of safety at Canada Post, they will tell you that, in rural areas, mail service will be reduced by 30% once the safety analyses have been completed. They are not proposing to change delivery vehicles to ones that are smaller and can drive on the shoulder of the road, as in the United States. No, not at all. They are not talking about that; it is too expensive. I understand that, because with this bill they will lose potential revenue or even lose money.

We must understand why Canada Post decided to take remailers to court. Is it because the problem is growing and their share of the market will double, triple or quadruple in 10 or 12 years? Will Canada Post be cannibalized by these companies? No one in government is asking this question. The matter has already been settled. The bill has already been tabled and it has been decreed that we have to deal with the remailers. We will never know.

Naturally, this is very worrisome for the rural postal service. The Bloc Québécois will always support the equity of all regions, whether urban or rural. We will never rise in this House to jeopardize the service provided to citizens, whether they live in rural areas—as I was saying earlier—or in urban areas. Quebeckers and Canadians work hard and are entitled to residential postal service, whether they live in rural or urban areas. The Bloc Québécois will always be there to defend them.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his intervention. I very much appreciated working with him on the transport committee.

He knows full well that the issue of the remailers was actually discussed at committee on a number of occasions. In fact, we even had witnesses before our committee who testified about the impact that this particular industry would have on Canada Post.

We had a lot of discussion over this issue, and the hon. member also knows that this bill, when it is passed at second reading, will end up going back to committee where he will be able to make all the arguments and say whether his party is for or against this particular bill.

I think the hon. member over-complicates the matter. I will read the actual legislation itself. It basically refers to section 15 of the Canada Post Corporation Act being amended by adding the following:

The exclusive privilege referred to in subsection 14(1) does not apply to letters intended for delivery to an addressee outside Canada.

In other words, it is a very simple question and a very straightforward issue: Should remailers continue to be allowed to do business in Canada?

I do take issue with the hon. member's characterization of $50 million per year being taken away from Canada Post. In fact, he knows that is not true. The truth is that the $50 million has never been received by Canada Post because remailers have been doing business for some 20 years in Canada and continue to this very day to do business.

My question to the hon. member is, how can he claim that Canada Post is losing and will lose $50 million, or whatever the amount is, every year, when in fact it has never received that money?

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I find that surprising because Canada Post wrote to us saying that it had tried to resolve its issues with these companies amicably. Why did Canada Post decide to take the matter to court? Because the market was growing.

I do not want to hear the member say that Canada Post's bottom line will not be affected. The reason Canada Post took these businesses to court is that the market was growing and it was time to clarify the situation. I do not mind if our colleague trumpets his bill, but it is only three lines long, which means that it cannot be improved. Either one is for it or one is against it. That is what I do not like about it.

The member is on the committee. He knew full well what we wanted to do, which was to conduct a thorough study before suggesting legislative amendments. He said that we heard a lot of witnesses, but I would point out that not even Canada Post employees were able to appear before the committee. As he may recall, we were unable to call employees before the committee at the same time as the president because they were negotiating collective agreements in other areas.

The study was not a thorough one, even though the committee recommended it unanimously. Canada Post was asked to drop its case until a thorough study could be completed. That is not what the Conservatives decided to do. They introduced a bill that, I agree with the member, is not long. One either supports this bill or one does not. That way, the Conservatives can avoid the whole debate, and we will never know the whole story. Once again, that is the Conservatives' modus operandi in government.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I agree, for the most part, with the comments made by my colleague from Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel. As he will recall, I was very much involved in the discussions in committee. Furthermore, there were a great many motions and procedures. In the end, it all led to a rather lively exchange of ideas, from which resulted a resolution that was unanimously passed by the committee.

Indeed, as indicated by my hon. colleague from Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, this unanimous resolution recognized Canada Post's exclusive privilege and asked it to stop its litigation in order to consider other possibilities through which Canada Post could continue to exercise its exclusive privilege while somehow compromising with remailers.

Since I have major concerns about the bill as it was introduced, I would like to inform the House that I was one of the people who believed that Canada Post's exclusive privilege should not be tampered with. To attack it, infringe on it, chip away at it and lessen it, as this bill seeks to do, would truly be a first step towards something that, in my opinion, we do not want to do. Indeed, we are sinking into something that greatly concerns me, in part, because of some of the reasons indicated by my colleague.

I do not have a question for the member, but since I participated in the discussions in committee, I would also like to set the record straight: we were able to reach this unanimous consent only because the two concepts were taboo. We respect the exclusive privilege, but we are calling on Canada Post to stop its legal actions and learn to compromise with the remailers. This is not at all what the government is doing at this time. On the contrary, it decided to cut off the discussion, in a way that I personally hope to be able to comment on during the debate and that poses considerable problems for me.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I truly appreciate the question posed by my colleague for Ottawa—Vanier. I know that he was given a promotion and that is why he no longer sits with us.

Nevertheless, that was the thrust of the discussions. Once again, I am disappointed that the government has introduced this bill that does not give us a choice. It cannot be improved. That is what I find frustrating. Had we been able to improve it, we might have been able to come to an agreement. The way in which it is drafted only allows us to be either for or against it. With only three lines, it is impossible to add a paragraph. The law clerks would find it not receivable. We will have to be either for or against the bill.

I am pleased that the Liberals are divided. That will make us work harder.

[Louise Thibault, Independent, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be brief in order to give others an opportunity to speak.

I thank my colleague for Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel for his speech. I would merely like him to say if he agrees with my statement that it is nothing more or less than deregulation. It is based on an ideology that favours the free market, quite often at the expense of the people to be served. To repeat the expression he himself used, service for those who live in rural areas will go out the window.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

The honourable member for Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel would probably like to know, when answering, that another member of his own political party would like to ask him a question and there are two and a half minutes remaining.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is quite right. That will be the result. However, that was not the committee's goal.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague from Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel on presenting this way of seeing this bill.

This is nothing new. The report issued by the committee that reviewed Canada Post's mandate in 1996 recommended “that Canada Post remain a Crown corporation in the public sector and the exclusive privilege be maintained”. The report also recommended “that Canada Post be mandated to operate on a break-even basis rather than pursue a commercial rate of return”.

With this bill, the government is attacking just that by wording the bill in such simple terms that we cannot change anything. I am very aware of that.

I would like my colleague to tell us more about the losses that will result in our ridings, especially a riding like mine, where there are hills—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

The hon. member for Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Brome—Missisquoi is absolutely right. He himself is an example. I know that he is dealing with that right now.

Citizens in his riding are undergoing a reassessment right now, and given the topography around there, Canada Post will probably cut service to more than 30% of their mailboxes. That is very frustrating because there are techniques and technologies for that. The member himself showed me how it works in the United States. Much smaller cars are much safer on the roads. But we cannot talk about that. We cannot talk about investment because the Canada Post Corporation might lose revenue to other companies.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I want to note that my hon. colleague from the Bloc stood up on a 20 minute defence of things that are canadiennes. That has got to be extraordinary for a sovereignist.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

That is not really a point of order. We will go on to the member for Hamilton Centre.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to join in the debate today.

The NDP believes that prior to even getting to the point of whether we agree with the bill or not, there ought to be a follow through on the commitment to do a review of the entire mandate of Canada Post. Then we would have a better idea of how this fits into what we collectively expect from Canada Post going forward.

It is a shame that is not happening. I suppose it is possible there is a good reason why it is not happening. The government may not like the way it looks in the context of a mandate that has just been reviewed, but I will leave that where it is. We will continue to push for this mandate and we will continue to oppose the bill.

I cannot seem to find anything on what Canada Post has to say about Bill C-14. I can only hope Canada Post is not being gagged. I hope very soon, either at the end of today or tomorrow at the latest, we will get some idea of what one of the largest crown corporations in our nation has to say about a bill, a bill that goes directly to the heart of its ability to raise revenue and meet the mandate given to it by Parliament.

Let us remember, as we go through this whole discussion, that Canada Post, in addition to the services outlined in the legislation, has also been mandated to raise revenue on a self-sufficient basis. In other words, Canada Post cannot come back to Parliament and ask for money. It has a good enough service and product that it should be able to raise enough money through revenue to pay for all the costs.

Let us remember that we have one of the lowest universal letter rates in all the industrialized world. Canada is the second largest country, land mass wise, in the world. That is a pretty good achievement. For all the kicks that everybody likes to take at Canada Post from time to time, for whatever reason, at the end of the day that is a pretty good accomplishment. Canada Post is raising revenue without running a deficit. It is not coming here and asking for money.

The absolute key to Canada Post being able to provide a service that is recognized around the world and serves the needs of Canadians at a cost that they can afford is the whole notion of the exclusive privilege. It either has an exclusive privilege or it does not. The government wants to have it both ways. It does, but maybe not everywhere: Conservative government, public service, money to be made.

At this point, the NDP and the Conservatives start walking down a different road. Our sense is the reason the government is doing this is part ideology. The Conservatives do not like public services. If there is a dime to be made, one of their buddies ought to make it.

The notion of what is best for the public interest does not appear on a balance sheet. It does appear in a crown corporation, but it does not in private enterprise and nobody suggests it should. The Conservatives want this business because there is money to be made. That is the only reason, and from all accounts, there will be more and more money to be made each year.

We have a situation where some private enterprises have started to do work that is exclusively the mandate of a crown corporation. Whatever happened to the law and order party in our country? Under other circumstances, if people broke the law, flagrantly no less, and went ahead and started conducting business that was the rightful business of somebody else, the Conservatives would be holding them to account. They would go after them because they broke the law according to the Conservatives. They would be considered a law-breaker of the whole nine yards.

What do we see in this case? The Conservatives are going to change the law because there is lots of money to be made so law-breakers are now complying with the law. That is a pretty good trick if someone can get them to do that.

Let us take a look at some of the meat in the legislation. I agree with my Bloc colleague that one cannot believe for a minute that just because it is a small bill, and it really is, it somehow will not have a major impact. This is a smooth process. They are not allowed to do something by law. They go ahead and start to do it. The people who have the exclusive right to do what they are doing call them on it and they keep doing it.

From what I understand, Canada Post spent a few years working with the Universal Postal Union trying to come up with a way to square the circle in terms of what that organization represented and the law, which gives the exclusive right and privilege to Canada Post. It did not work.

Therefore, Canada Post said that it would go to court to make it very clear that the work done by the private companies encroached on business that was the lawful mandate of Canada Post. Canada Post won. These corporations, I guess because they care so much about public service and the delivery of mail, appealed it. They lost again.

It is interesting what the judges said in this case. Justice MacFarland, who wrote on behalf of a three judge panel that ruled unanimously, said:

The purpose of the statutory privilege can only be to enable CP to fulfill its statutory mandate or realize its objects. It is meant to be self-sustaining financially while at the same time providing similar standards of service throughout our vast country. Profits are realized in densely populated areas which subsidize the services provided in the more sparsely populated areas.

This is not a new challenge that we face as a country. Because of our values, we believe Canadians, no matter where they live in the country, should be able to find, with reasonable closeness, a reasonable facsimile to the services they would enjoy anywhere else in Canada.

Do we achieve that wholly? No, we do not. We can ask anybody. Ask my friend from Sault Ste. Marie whether the health services are the same in Sault Ste. Marie as they are in Toronto. Notwithstanding the difficulties in Toronto, they are that much greater in Sault Ste. Marie. Why? Because it has a smaller population and it is spread out so far.

I have not even begun to talk about the territories and the extremities of the country. It is a massive country. We believe that things like health care, transportation services, environmental protection and other government services should, as much as possible, be the same, or at least as close as one can reasonably get, never backing away from pushing to get there.

Quite frankly, we do not have to go all that far even in my own province. There are a lot of rural areas just outside Hamilton. If we based our profit margin, as a postal service, on the amount of business that came out those small areas, they would not get any. They would be an afterthought, but that is not the case right now.

For the same price, we can mail a letter or a package from anywhere in Canada to anywhere in Canada at a reasonable rate. Why? Because the exclusive privilege allows the post office to take profit from parts of its service, which allows it to offset the cost to provide, as close as it can, the same service in rural areas as we get in downtown Toronto. Again, in the second largest country in the world, that is not an easy feat.

What is proposed in the legislation will water down the ability of Canada Post to do that. Some might say that it is not doing the work at all right now. As I understand it, that is not factually correct. Some of the work is being done by Canada Post. Some of it is being done by people who should not be doing it. It is unlawful.

We are running a surplus right now. Overall, not in manufacturing but in many other areas of the economy, things are not going too badly. Profits are being made.

But what about tomorrow? What about next year? What about in five years, in ten years? Once we begin down the slippery slope of eating away at exclusive privilege we undermine the ability of Canada Post to provide the world class service that it does.

It is that simple. That is why we ought to be reviewing the mandate. If we do not want it to do that, then let us stop kidding ourselves and build a whole different kind of post office.

This is not really about whether we believe in privatized services, whether we believe in the private sector or the public sector and which one should be bigger, more important, first dibs on it. Really that is not the issue. It is a side issue. Really what is in front of us is the issue of how we want to handle postal services in Canada. If we want to continue them along the same vein that we have started, then we need to make sure Canada Post has the means to do it. It is that simple.

I certainly do not know of any commercial entity that wants to take over rural postal services only, or other aspects of delivering anything in Canada that is difficult, not to mention our weather. No. There is big money in it and that is why big money was prepared to hire high-priced lawyers to go to court to try to get it ripped open. When that did not work, they looked up at the sky, counted all their lucky stars and said, “We have a Conservative government in power. Let's just get the law changed”, and here we are with Bill C-14.

It takes just a handful of lines:

1. Section 15 of the Canada Post Corporation Act is amended by adding the following after subsection (2):

(3) The exclusive privilege referred to in subsection 14(1) does not apply to letters intended for delivery to an addressee outside Canada.

It might as well say that where Canada Post has a chance to make a decent buck, we are going to privatize it, because that is what is going on.

I know the Conservatives are going to jump up and flail their arms and say, “This is not privatization. No, no. This is its sibling deregulation”. It is the same thing.

Make no mistake, if this bill passes today and we keep a like-minded government in power--and I cannot say anything about the official opposition; I have heard two speakers and they both took each side of the issue, which is pretty traditional so far, so it is hard to say whether this could only happen with the Conservatives. The Liberals are close enough that they may get what they want from either one.

The fact is if they win this, why would they not be back for more? Why not sit back in the boardroom and say, “Okay. Here is how this works. Let's find out other profitable areas of Canada Post and start doing it. When Canada Post gets upset, we will not even have to take it to court this time. We'll just go straight to the government and the government will stand up and say, 'Why are you doing this to these poor small businesses?'”

By the way, a lot of these poor small businesses have a huge global reach. This is big money. It reminds me a bit of WSIB, workers compensation in Ontario, where the private insurance companies are still standing outside the borders of the province drooling at the prospect of getting their mitts on all that money.

If this works, why not identify something else, go through the whole process again and eventually water it down to the point where we are in this place one day where there is an attack on the fact that Canada Post is running a deficit. Then they will go looking for scapegoats. And then what? My good friend from Ottawa Centre asked, “Then what?” That is exactly the right question. If Canada Post starts running a deficit, either this place starts to give it money that we have not had to do before because that profit is now not in the pockets of Canadians through the public service, it is in private pockets.

I hear one of the members heckling and asking “Is that bad?” I would say it is bad when either the cost of stamps and postal services goes up, taxes are increased to provide the subsidy or cut the service. Those are the options. I would say to you, Mr. Speaker, with regard to what the hon. member said, that yes, it is bad.

Maybe if I were lying on a nice deck chair on a great big yacht somewhere being taken care of by those who got all that money, I might feel differently. But as somebody who cares about postal service in Canada and is here to fight for the rights of ordinary Canadians, this is the structure that works.

The government did not even have the guts to say that it was going to change the mandate. No, it takes away the financial means to achieve the mandate. It is deceitful in some ways, if that term is allowed to stand, and it seems that it might be.

There is a sham being perpetrated here. We hear the argument that we are picking on people and why would we do this when it is already being done and all this stuff that suggests it is not a big deal and not to get all upset, that this is just the Bloc and the NDP fighting for those working people again or public services. At least some of the Liberals are saying that. I am waiting to get clarification of exactly where they are, so I will not comment. It does not really matter anyway, because they do not vote. They are just a debating society.

I want to read something in support of this notion about the slippery slope. Either we leave the exclusive privilege in place in its entirety or we say, no, revamp the mandate and build something completely different. It is one or the other. I agree with my Bloc colleague when he said that this is a vote up or down; there is no mitigating, no amendments, we either believe in this or we do not.

This is what was said in a report 11 years ago, the last time there was a Canada Post mandate review: “Removal of the exclusive privilege would be tantamount, in effect, to tossing Canada's postal system up into the air, allowing it to smash into a random assortment of pieces, and hoping that those pieces would somehow rearrange themselves into a coherent whole that was better or at least as good as the current system”.

At that time Canada Post did not seem to have as much difficulty finding its voice and it said that for as long as it is the public policy of Canada to provide universal letter service at uniform rates, it will be necessary to maintain the limited exclusive privilege for letters.

That is what this is about. This is about legitimizing and legalizing something that is currently outside the law. It is no different from Microsoft, or Disney, or any other big player. Canada Post is protecting its revenue stream, its market.

Why on earth would we tinker with a system that for the most part serves Canadians well and does not cost Canadian taxpayers anything beyond the money it costs them to buy the service at the postal station? Why would we mess with that? Why would we tinker with it? There is only one reason and this is my opinion. I am saying this in here, and this is pure speculation, but it is my right to say it and I am going to. It looks an awful lot to me like these private entities could not win in the courts, so they did the lobbying routine, lobbied the government and now the government is prepared to do their bidding to legalize tomorrow what is today illegal.

I will be interested to hear better arguments, particularly from my friend over in the corner who has his laptop and I am sure that all the information is being fed from central command about what his questions to me are going to be and how he is going to attack those wild-eyed New Democrats again. I await that moment, but what I await more than anything is the remote possibility that they might come up with an argument that actually holds.

Do not give us this stuff that we do not care about those private sector jobs. Of course we do.

[An hon. member]

You don't.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Of course we do.

[An hon. member]

You don't.

[An hon. member]

There is an echo in here.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

It is more like a yo-yo, the voices going back and forth, Mr. Speaker.

At the end of the day, that is what this is about. If that were the case, then I certainly would hear the Conservative government taking a very different approach on law and order.

Mr. Speaker, you are signalling time, so I will end it there.

The House resumed from November 20, 2007 consideration of the motion that Bill C-14, An Act to amend the Canada Post Corporation Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

When we last discussed Bill C-14, there were 10 minutes left for questions and comments for the hon. member for Hamilton Centre. Questions and comments?

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise in this House today to support Bill C-14, an Act to amend the Canada Post Corporation Act, on second reading. This bill recognizes the reality that international remailing companies have been operating in Canada for several decades.

Why should we punish these small businesses that play an important role in our economy? As I will try to show this afternoon, it would be preferable to examine the bill in committee than to defeat it, as some members of the House would like to do, without hearing from experts and those who will be affected.

This bill seeks to address an existing weakness in the Canada Post Corporation Act. A difference in the wording of the English and French versions of the provisions of the Canada Post Corporation Act dealing with the exclusive privilege of the corporation has allowed other companies to deliver mail to people in other countries.

Acting on this difference in wording, the Canadian International Mail Association has been able to collect and distribute letters weighing up to 500 grams addressed to foreign recipients for 20 years—I repeat, for 20 years. Recently, Canada Post decided to exercise the exclusive privilege giving it a monopoly over mail to foreign addresses.

International remailers have been in operation for more than 20 years. They operative almost exclusively in three large metropolitan areas—Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. The revenue of these international remailers here in Canada is estimated at about $50 million per year, which is less than 0.8% of Canada Post’s annual revenue. There is no competition in other areas. They do not compete for distribution of mail in small rural communities where Canada Post may be an important employer, if not the most important. Nobody competes with Canada Post for the role of the standard bearer of our presence in Canada, a contact point between government and citizens all across the country.

This sector has prospered for more than 20 years. Obviously, its success is not so great as to significantly affect Canada Post’s revenue. Last year, Canada Post generated total revenue of $7.3 billion. While the postal delivery sector was stable, remailing companies did not take in much more than $50 million. One can see that they do not represent a Trojan horse for Canada Post, despite what the corporation and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers may say. I am a former member of that union. In fact, I was a shop steward.

As my hon. colleague, the member for Eglinton—Lawrence, put it so eloquently in his speech in this House on this very bill on November 20, 2007, and I quote:

As members of the House of Commons, our first obligation is to ensure that no legislation goes through the House that damages the potential available to any Canadian and, concomitant with that, the obligation to nurture an environment that gives Canadians that same opportunity.

Indeed, members of the Liberal opposition and I have been aware of the potential impact killing this legitimate business, killing this legitimate competition, and its impact on Canadians. We have been working hard to remedy the situation.

I would like to give a little history of what Liberals have been working on, on this issue. On March 22, 2007, the member for Etobicoke Centre wrote the Minister of Transport as the then Liberal critic for crown corporations. He insisted in his letter that the government make the necessary legislative changes to continue to allow these firms to operate. If I may just read the actual letter:

Dear Minister: I am writing to you about the ongoing concerns of members of the Canadian International Mail Association who face difficult challenges due to pressure being applied by Canada Post Corporation to eliminate competition in the international mail market in Canada.

It is my understanding that the government supports the maintenance of the competitiveness of the international mail delivery market and has indicated its intention to make the necessary legislative changes to enable these firms to continue to operate.

I note that during question period on October 26, 2006, you stated that:

And my colleague is referring to the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities:

“many members from all sides of the House have indicated support on this issue. Indeed, the new government supports small businesses and competitive economic conditions needed to ensure their survival. This is why the government will be coming forward in a few weeks with substantive steps to deal with the issues regarding international re-mailers”.

Then my colleague from Etobicoke Centre goes on in his letter to say:

Please be assured that should you introduce this important legislation, there would be significant support from the opposition members.

Respectfully,

Member for Etobicoke Centre

Critic for Crown Corporations

That is not all. On October 17, 2007, the Leader of the Opposition affirmed this support in a letter to the president of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, Ms. Deborah Bourque. He explained that while Liberals supported international remailers, we do not support the deregulation of Canada Post. I would like to read that letter dated April 17, 2007:

Dear Ms. Bourque: On behalf of the Liberal Party of Canada and our Liberal Caucus, I am pleased to have this opportunity to respond to your letters and clarify our position in regard to international re-mailers and the deregulation and privatization of Canada Post. I regret the delay of this response.

As you can appreciate, this complex matter has stirred much debate in the past few years from all affected parties. After careful consideration and study of the issue it is our intent to support the continued operations of international re-mailers within Canada.

Although I understand your concern in regard to this issue, it is important to note that international re-mailers have been operating in Canada for several decades now. The Liberal Party does not believe that hurting these small business owners would be in the best interests of Canadians.

That said, it is also important to note that the Liberal Party does not support the deregulation and privatization of Canada Post.

As your correspondence and related material will also be of interest to...the Liberal Critic for Crown Corporations, I have taken the liberty of forwarding a copy of our exchange for his consideration. I am certain that he will be happy to provide a more detailed response to your concerns.

In the meantime, I hope the above helps to clarify our position on the issue. Thank you for taking the time to write, and please accept my warmest regards.

Leader of the Official Opposition

Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada

As early as March and then in April 2007, official spokesmen on behalf of the Liberal parliamentary caucus and the leader of the official opposition and Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada made it very clear that Liberals would support and do support maintaining the right of international remailers, and that we do not support any move to privatize or to deregulate Canada Post. I hope that no one in the House will try to mix both issues, because they are separate issues.

Let me go on and continue to provide a little of the history.

So, on May 9, 2007, the hon. member for Eglinton—Lawrence, as Liberal critic for transport, infrastructure and communities, brought forward at the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities a motion which I think would settle the issue between Canada Post and the remailing companies. After several hours of discussion, my hon. colleague's motion was passed, as amended, by a vote of eight to three.

On May 18, the motion put forward by the hon. member for Eglinton—Lawrence, on which other Liberal members of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities had worked, was introduced in the House of Commons as part of the fifth report of the committee. The report stated, and I quote:

That the Committee recommend that Government issue a directive to the Canada Post Corporation pursuant to the Minister of Transport's authority under Section 22 of the Canada Post Corporation Act and in accordance with the Financial Administration Act, stating that:

i) The Corporation shall, at its option, either discontinue, withdraw or consent to a judicial stay of proceedings in respect of allegations or judicial findings that entities have or continue to violate the exclusive privilege in Section 14 of the Canada Post Corporation Act with respect to letters intended for delivery outside of Canada and, where an injunction has been issued with respect to letters intended for delivery outside of Canada, the Corporation shall consent to an application brought to dissolve such an injunction, until the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities has the opportunity of reviewing the matter and formulating recommendations to the Government and Canada Post.

ii) The Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities conduct this review of section 14 of the Canada Post Corporation Act by end of 2007.

The government drew inspiration from this fifth report of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities for its Bill C-14, introduced on October 19, 2007. That is the bill we are debating today.

I also heard from people working in this sector in my own riding. On October 24, five days before the minister actually tabled government Bill C-14, I wrote to the Minister of Transport requesting that he take such action on this important issue. I would like to read my letter into the record. It states

Dear Minister...

I recently met with a representative from Spring Global Mail, an international mail delivery service company, which has an office in my constituency. The representative from Spring informed me about the deep concern he had for the international mail service industry in Canada. As of November 2004, Canada Post was granted a permanent court injunction to enforce its monopoly powers over this sector, thereby making this industry slowly disappear.

This simply is not right as it would dissolve a growing Canadian market that not only includes international mail delivery companies but small and medium sized businesses, as well as some of Canada's largest corporations in printing and financial field[s]. It would be a shame to lose a twenty year old sector of our country's economy to unequal economic practices.

I support equal economic opportunity for all Canadian businesses and would completely disagree with Canada Post having full jurisdiction over this sector. Fixing this injustice is simply the right thing to do. I would support legislation that would revitalize this industry and reverse the court injunction so as to stop the bleeding.

I signed it “Sincerely”, with my name, as member of Parliament for Notre-Dame--de-Grace--Lachine, with a certified copy to Mr. Stephane Forget of Spring Global Mail.

I think this makes it quite clear that the issue of international remail delivery has been something that Liberals have been active on, as I am sure other members sitting in the House have been, and which I believe needs to go to committee.

As I said, there are people in my riding who have been working in this sector and who have been working legitimately in this field for over 20 years. Should Canada Post and CUPW succeed in their efforts at painting this as an issue that impacts rural mail delivery and succeed in having the bill killed before it truly can be examined, it will not help the honest Canadians in my riding and in other ridings in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver, the centres where these companies are located. These centres are not located in rural ridings. They are not even located here in Ottawa. They are located in three main urban centres: Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.

I am assuming, but I could be wrong, that the NDP may be supportive of Bill C-14. I hope it is supportive, but it would not surprise me if the NDP is not. Should Canada Post and CUPW and the NDP succeed in killing this bill, they will also be killing the jobs of many hard-working Canadians. To attempt to claim that this has anything to do with rural mail delivery is simply false.

I worked for Canada Post. I was a shop steward for Canada Post. I am a defender of rural mail delivery. I can tell members that Canada Post's efforts in its study on rural mailboxes, for so-called health and security reasons, are going to endanger rural mail delivery much more than international remailers will ever do.

I would say that anyone, including CUPW, the NDP and Canada Post, that attempts to link this to the protection of rural mail delivery or to privatization or deregulation is simply not stating the facts and is trying to fearmonger. This has absolutely nothing to do with any of those three issues.

I would beg colleagues in the House not to attempt to make that linkage, because it is a tenuous one at best and that is putting the best spin that I can on it. It is simply not true.

I will end there and say that I urge members in the House to support Bill C-14 being referred to a committee and also to protect our honest, hard-working Canadians in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver who depend on those companies for their jobs.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

Order, please. It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, Guaranteed Income Supplement and the Budget; the hon. member for Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, Manufacturing and Forestry Industries.

The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments from the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine and the congratulations that she offers to the minister, the Prime Minister and this government for bringing forward this legislation.

Indeed, I have three questions for her. First, is it true that there are approximately 10,000 jobs in the industry, which is what has been represented to me, that those jobs indeed would be lost in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver if this legislation is not brought forward? That is the first question.

Second, why did the Liberals not bring forward legislation to correct this particular issue during the period of time they were in government and this was an ongoing issue? It took this government to do so.

Finally, her seatmate two seats away, the member for Halton, has advocated privatization of Canada Post. Although this government is clear that we are not taking any steps that way, does she agree with the member for Halton that privatization of Canada Post would be in the best interests of Canadians? We certainly do not believe that is the case.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

I will begin with the last question first.

I read the letter from the Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada that was addressed to Deborah Bourque, the president of CUPW. In it, our leader makes very clear the Liberal policy. The Liberal parliamentary caucus and the Liberal Party are opposed to privatization and deregulation of Canada Post. It is clear. No, we do not support it. N-O.

In terms of the second question the member asked, about the representation that approximately 10,000 Canadian jobs are dependent on the passage of Bill C-14, I believe the member is correct in that figure. I believe that is the approximate number of jobs. These jobs are located principally in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. That is why I made the point that I did. When certain elements attempt to fearmonger and say that should the international remailers be given the legislative authority to continue to compete on that little slice of Canada Post business it will somehow put into jeopardy rural mail delivery, it is simply not true. It is not.

Shame on anyone who attempts to make that argument. If it is CUPW, shame on CUPW. I am a strong unionist, but it is not because one is a unionist that one is without error and that one's argument is always right. And it is certainly not because one belongs to the NDP that one is always right. I would say it is more that one is usually wrong.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

I recognize the hon. member for Berthier—Maskinongé, but I would like to point out that other members would also like to ask questions. We have six minutes remaining.

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will ask my question quickly.

I understand that the Canada Post Corporation is not in a deficit position; it is currently making a profit. I live in a rural area, and I am convinced that the postal service there has not improved in many years. Post offices have closed, meaning that people in rural areas must now drive several kilometres to pick up their mail.

This proposal that we are debating seeks to take $48 to $50 million of Canada Post Corporation's profits. I am almost certain that this would have an effect on rural areas and mail delivery. It would eat into the revenues. We typically never reduce the postal services in Montreal, Toronto or Vancouver. It is usually the rural areas that feel the cutbacks.

Citizens are currently very unhappy with postal services. I do not think that this bill will improve these services.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will answer very quickly.

In 2006, Canada Post had revenues of $7.3 billion, with a net profit of $320 million. The remailing industry has been around for more than 20 years. This industry is not what has hurt rural mail delivery.

I worked at Canada Post and I was unionized. I can say that this has nothing to do with remailing. It is simply Canada Post's desire to make its deliveries as cost effective as possible. Canada Post did not even think that it had exclusive rights over international mail. So it has never challenged the existence of this industry.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as much as the Liberals do not want anyone to think this has anything to do with rural mail delivery, privatization or deregulation, the fact is that it speaks to the very heart of the ability of Canada Post to remain the entity that it is, to provide the service it provides and to do it in a manner that does not cost the taxpayer, through any extra subsidies, any extra money. It is a stand-alone, self-sustaining organization that employs 55,000 proud Canadians.

The Liberals would have us believe that they will be supporting this, but even if it is the unions that are supporting this position, we should not let anyone say that this has anything to do with rural mail delivery.

The fact is that if we bleed away Canada Post's ability to be financially viable, we ultimately will deny it the ability to provide the service. Is that just CUPW, which, I am sure, is very proud of their former member?

It is not only the NDP. I want to ask the member a question with regards to what Justice MacFarland said on May 8, 2007, one year ago, on behalf of a three panel judge after Canada Post had won the first court case. The private enterprises that the hon. member mentioned appealed and at the appeal court the justice said:

The purpose of the statutory privilege can only be to enable CP to fulfill its statutory mandate or realize its objects. It is meant to be self-sustaining financially while at the same time providing similar standards of service throughout our vast country. Profits are realized in densely populated areas which subsidize the services provided in the more sparsely populated areas.

If we deny Canada Post the revenue it needs to be viable, rural service will be affected and the ability of Canada Post to exist as a crown corporation will be at risk.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the answer is very simple. In 2006, Canada Post generated $7.3 billion.

[An hon. member]

Is that with a “b”?

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Yes, that is with a “b”, not an “m”, $7.3 billion, and $320 million net profit.

No one should attempt to tell Canadians and the thousands of Canadians who work for the international remailers in Canada that their jobs should be lost because that business generates $50 million.

I would like to remind the member that Canada Post had a 12% interest in one of these remailers from 1992 to 1996, and one of them has an office in my riding. At that time it was called TNT Mailfast but it is now called Spring Global Mail. Canada Post did not have any problem then.

International remailers do not jeopardize Canada Post's ability to earn profits. I might add that if the NDP succeeds in eliminating this business, it will not create one more job for CUPW.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I was very pleased to actually hear the Liberals support Bill C-14. There is very little we agree on in the House but from time to time we sing from the same page. Unfortunately, the NDP still is not getting that this is all about saving Canadian jobs.

This is not a complicated bill. Actually, it contains one simple clause. For most Canadians, it will have no significance that they know of but to the thousands of Canadians whose jobs will be lost if we do not pass this bill, it is critical to their livelihoods and their families.

What is remailing? Let me explain for those who do not understand what that industry is all about.

As we know, there are people in Canada who mail letter mail to each other. It is mail that is sent within Canada, collected within Canada and delivered within Canada. That mail is delivered by Canada Post and Canada Post has what is called exclusive privilege, which is simply another name for a monopoly. Canadians accept that. Our government accepts that. I believe all the parties in the House accept the fact that there is exclusive privilege for mail that is collected, distributed and delivered in Canada.

However, there is also other mail that is sent from Canada around the world. What businesses find is that the cost of that mailing can in some cases be very expensive. If a business is sending out thousands and thousands of pieces of letter mail a year, those costs can add up. They can affect one's competitiveness in a fiercely competitive international market.

Remailers are companies that will collect and bundle letter mail in Canada, take it to another jurisdiction, in most cases the United States, and mail it from there because the costs of mailing are significantly less. That is good for our economy because anything that allows Canadian businesses to compete better with the world markets is good. It is good for our economy and for families across this country, although the NDP just cannot understand that.

The change is very simple. The bill states, “does not apply to letters intended for delivery to an addressee outside Canada”. In other words, the exclusive privilege will not relate to letter mail that is collected in Canada but mailed from outside of Canada.

For 20 years this was not an issue. The industry, Canada Post, the unions, the remailers all accepted the fact that the Canada Post Corporation Act actually only provided exclusive privilege for letter mail that was collected and mailed within Canada to Canadians.

What happened along the way? The remailers started building their businesses. They starting investing a lot of money. They started creating jobs in Canada to provide a service to Canadian businesses. For 20 years there was no opposition to this. I am trying to figure out what happened.

Here is what I think happened. Canada Post obviously employs bright, young lawyers who are supposed to protect their interests, and that is fair. I am guessing that one day one of these bright, young lawyers checked the clause in the Canada Post Corporation Act, both in English and French, and, lo and behold, they found there was an inconsistency between the two clauses. The English clause did not say exactly what the French one said. It was an “aha” moment for the lawyer. He felt that he might have them and took the remailers to court.

The remailers were told that under the French version of the act they did not a right to exist and that the people working for them should not be employed in a remailing industry. The case was taken all through the courts until it ended up in the Supreme Court of Canada. The Supreme Court of Canada had to basically choose one or the other of the two interpretations, the English one or the French one. In the end, the Supreme Court of Canada decided, in its wisdom, that it was the French that should prevail.

That ruling came as a shock to the remailing industry and to our government. It came as a shock to most of the members of the House because we were at risk of losing an industry that employs some 10,000 people in Canada and an industry that is worth at least $100 million a year. Overnight this was going to be shut down.

I do not think that is fair. It is not the Canadian way and, quite frankly, it is not why I was elected as a member of Parliament. It is my job to stand up for Canadians, to defend Canadian jobs and to ensure we are fair with the Canadian people.

Our clause simply restates what everyone has accepted as the status quo for well over two decades. It says that remailers will continue to have the right to conduct their businesses, to take business mail within Canada, bundle it together and send it elsewhere in the world from another jurisdiction.

One might think that along the way Canada Post had been asserting its right to exclusive privilege over the remailing industry but that is not so. Back in 1988, Canada Post actually issued a magazine called Manager Magazine. In the April-May 1988 edition there was an article written by a lady by the name of Barbara Leimsner. In an article that she entitled, “Reaching for a Higher Plateau”, she said:

Outbound mail is not protected by exclusive privilege which leaves this lucrative business open to a new threat--aggressive competition from international remail companies.

That is Canada Post acknowledging that it was facing stiff competition and that it was taking on the remailers in the market legitimately. That was back in 1988.

Let us move on to 2005. A newsletter was issued by, I believe, Canada Post and, ironically, the newsletter is called , “Upfront”. It is actually in the form of a letter by the president and CEO of Canada Post no less, and is entitled, “Moving beyond our history”. The chief executive of Canada Post said:

Today, the notion of exclusive privilege is a thing of the past....We must all understand that today our customers have many opportunities to take their business elsewhere.

When she refers to taking business elsewhere, what else could she mean but that Canadian businesses have the ability to take their mail to a remailing company and have it mailed around the world from another jurisdiction.

Even as recently as 2005, Canada Post accepted the fact that exclusive privilege, this monopoly, only applied to domestic mail, mail that was collected within Canada and delivered within Canada. The CEO acknowledged in the article that exclusive privilege did not extend to the remailers.

Today, however, we have the court case that we must deal with. It says that there was an ambiguity in the law, that there was an anomaly between the English and French versions and that somehow we must reconcile those so they will choose the French version which has the impact of actually shutting down a major industry in Canada, eliminating some 10,000 jobs and $100 million worth of business a year.

The member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine referred to the fact that Canada Post actually owned a slice of the remailing industry for some four years. Is that not an irony? The very corporation that says remailers should not exist, actually invested in a remailing company some years ago and presumably made some money at it.

I do not know if the Bloc is supporting the legislation, but the other suggestion being made by my NDP colleagues is that somehow the profits that the remailers make today, and that Canada Post would like to now make its own, is critical to continuing a rural mail delivery service across Canada.

That is absolutely not true. In fact, we heard the profit quoted earlier. Last year, Canada Post earned some $320 million in profit. It is not losing money. The suggestion that somehow the bill would cause Canada Post to lose money is absolute nonsense. It does not own that business now, and it has not for some 20 years. This is a business that was legitimately carried on by the remailers. For over two decades, they depended on what everyone understood the state of the law to be, which was the English version of the Canada Post Corporation Act. Now that has changed because the courts picked up on this anomaly and decided against the remailers.

We want to correct that situation. We want to send a message to Canadians, especially those who rely on the remailing industry for their livelihoods, that we will stand behind them.

I want to give credit to the Liberals in the House. They recognized that. They got it. They understood there would be an injustice foisted upon these workers and industries, which had been acting in good faith for such a long time.

A suggestion has also been made that this is somehow a step toward deregulating postal service in Canada and privatizing Canada Post. Nothing could be further from the truth. We have made it very clear, as a Conservative government, that we will not take steps to privatize Canada Post. We believe Canada Post is performing a very useful service in Canada.

We have ordered that a strategic review of Canada Post be undertaken to ensure Canadians receive full value from Canada Post, to ensure Canada Post continues to pursue the objectives and purposes for which it was created and to ensure the postal corporation remains vibrant within Canada.

The suggestion that now putting the heavy hand of the law on the remailers would somehow enhance Canada Post prospects or enhance the prospects of businesses across Canada, which would like to keep their costs down, is ludicrous.

I come from an area of the country where individual enterprise is valued very highly. The remailers that have invested for some 20 years in this industry have done so in good faith. They took risks. They built their companies. They hired employees. They continued to grow. They provided a valuable service to thousands of other businesses across the country. To suggest that shutting those businesses down and getting rid of those jobs is somehow serving Canadians is absolutely wrong.

If I could just summarize, in point form, what the bill would not do and then what it would do, I hope Canadians will understand why Bill C-14 is important to them.

As I have already mentioned, it is critically important to those who rely on the remail industry for their livelihoods, but it is also critical for Canada's ongoing economic prosperity because we depend on remaining competitive. Canada lags behind many of the other industrialized countries in productivity.

How do we improve on that? One way is to ensure that Canadian businesses can reduce their costs and compete in a fiercely competitive world.

What would the bill not do? It would not result in a loss of revenue for Canada Post because Canada Post never had these revenues in the last 20 years.

This is not about a loss of jobs. I do not believe the NDP is even suggesting that it is a loss of jobs in the industry. What we are doing is protecting jobs. What those members would like to see happen is that those jobs go elsewhere. In fact, members may not know this but a number of the remailer companies have shut down their business in Canada and have gone elsewhere. Do members now where those jobs went? They did not stay in Canada. They left the country. Therefore, why would we want to risk that happening to the 10,000 remaining jobs we have in Canada? It is not about a loss of jobs; it is reaffirming the status quo of the last 20 years.

Is this about deregulation? Absolutely not. We have made that clear. My colleague across the floor has made that clear. This is not an attack on Canada Post. We continue to support exclusive privilege to Canada Post and its critical role in allowing Canadians to communicate with one another.

This is about protecting jobs, protecting our industry, our remailers, ensuring that we protect the trust that Canadians have, especially Canadian businessmen, when they see government and Canada Post moving forward in reliance on a certain law, that we will not flip-flop down the road. Finally, this is about maintaining Canada's competitiveness in the global economy.

Is Canada Post an important federal institution? Absolutely. It has a presence throughout our country. Does it need the remail industry to survive? Absolutely not. The profits last year of $320 million speak for themselves. There is more than enough money for Canada Post to do a good job in ensuring that Canadians have good rural mail delivery. Canada Post will continue to collect and transmit mail within Canada, and it is entitled to compete with the remailers in sending mail outside of Canada.

This is about protecting jobs. It is about standing up for Canadians. I appreciate the opportunity to defend this industry today with Bill C-14.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the hon. member's speech with interest. Would he clarify one thing for me? In his speech he said that he came from an area of Canada where they valued private enterprise, and I am sure that is the case.

Could he name an area in Canada where private enterprise is not valued? I am very interested in hearing if he actually believes that, or if he could clarify that point.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I named the area I come from and represent, which is the city of Abbotsford, and I love it. It is one of the most dynamic communities in the county. It has been built on the fact that people have understood the value of free enterprise, the right of individuals to develop themselves, to be free from government interference.

I hope this sentiment extends across our country, and I suspect it does. In every community there are pockets, some more than others, where we have this understanding of the value of free enterprise and where we are willing to go to bat for workers and industries wanting to build our economy.

[Louise Thibault, Independent, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the member who just spoke if he could assure us that the purpose of this bill is absolutely not, directly or indirectly, to start deregulation. That is my first question.

My second question is: why tinker with a universal service? Some companies, for whatever reason, acted illegally. The court ruled that they had six months to shut down their business. The Conservative government decided to take away Canada Post's chances to potentially make $80 million.

I would like to know the reasons behind this decision, when rural areas are suffering the consequences. A number of members in this House see this situation every day as they represent their constituents.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, first, I assume the member listened to my speech. I believe I confirmed on three occasions that this was not about deregulation. Nor is it about privatizing Canada Post. I want to lay her fears to rest. This is not about deregulation.

Second, she talked about tinkering with universal service. For well over two decades, the universal mail service in Canada, the exclusive privilege, has been restricted to domestic mail, in other words, mail collected within Canada and delivered within Canada. The suggestion that we have somehow had universal mail delivery in the area of international, outbound mail is wrong. It is simply wrong.

Why is she not standing up for the people in Montreal who depend on the remailing industry for their livelihoods, for their jobs? What will she say to the families that will now have individuals and members who are without jobs, if in fact she does not support Bill C-14?

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question. The minister responsible for Canada Post recently announced the establishment of an advisory committee to conduct a strategic review of Canada Post. That committee is to report to the minister in December 2008. Why does the government not wait for that report? Will that committee continue to sit even if the bill is passed?

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the short answer is, yes, we will continue to sit and it will do its work. The key issue is to ensure the status quo, the 10,000 jobs we presently have in Canada, remains intact and the families that rely on those jobs continue to live knowing they will be employed.

My concern is, as the strategic review plays out, that Canada Post moves forward and shuts down the remailers. There is the immediate consequence to 10,000 jobs in Canada. I am sure the member, who comes from Quebec and would obviously be worried about jobs in Montreal that would be lost if in fact we did not pass Bill C-14, would be concerned. He has to be concerned. That is his job, to stand up for the people of Quebec and ensure their jobs are protected.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Speaker, mine is more of an observation and comment rather than a question, although I welcome the hon. member's reflection on what I will say.

I have been struck by some of the comments that have to do with concern for rural Canada. Over the course of the last couple of months, the issues related to delivery of mail to rural Canada has really centred around the relationship between Canada Post and CUPW. There have been differences of opinion about when and how CUPW will deliver that mail. It has put some demands forward to Canada Post that it would not recommend its members deliver mail in rural communities where the issue of safety, by its own definition rather than by others, would cause it to say no, it would not deliver. The bill does not address that at all. The bill has nothing to do with rural communities. From what I can see, it has everything to do with a business that has been in operation for some 20 years in three major cities and not anywhere else.

The positions of my colleagues from the other parties are every bit as legitimate as anyone else's, but why would they think a corporation, which has net profits of 5% of its gross revenues, should shut down 10,000 other jobs generated by other businesses in order to improve its efficiency? The corporation has gross revenues of $7.3 billion. It is one of the largest corporations in the entire country in terms of revenues. It can boast that it has net profits of $320 million, roughly 5%. Why would anyone support its shutting down operations that provide 10,000 jobs for people who are not part of Canada Post?

Why anyone would say the corporation is right to shut down 10,000 jobs and deprive 10,000 families of a livelihood so it can have a chance of perhaps getting their revenues? Are we talking about social justice, labour justice, or exclusively about business and administrative practices? That is why I support Bill C-14. It has everything to do with supporting 10,000 families in the continuance of their livelihood. One does not have to be a member of the NDP, or Conservative, or Liberal, or Bloc, or independent to believe that is social justice.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague does have it right. This is about protecting 10,000 Canadian jobs in Vancouver, in Toronto, which is where he is from, and in Montreal. Our Conservative government is standing up for those jobs. Unfortunately, we have NDP members saying no, that those jobs are not important. Shame on them.

We want to ensure that we have representatives across the country standing up for Canadians and speaking out when their jobs are at risk. Senator Fortier is speaking out for Montrealers. MPs across the country recognize that Bill C-14 is absolutely critical to ensure that we protect those Canadian jobs. Make no mistake, it is very clear that if Bill C-14 does not pass and Canada Post Corporation shuts down the remailers, these 10,000 jobs will not be kept in Canada; they will go elsewhere.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have to say from the outset that we oppose the principle of Bill C-14.

As we know, this bill seeks to deprive the Canada Post Corporation of its exclusive privilege with respect to letters intended for delivery outside of Canada.

We are surprised that an advisory committee was recently set up, in April 2008, to review this issue. The committee is going to table its report in December 2008. Therefore, this bill seems premature at this point.

Why was that committee established? Why is the government introducing this legislation? As the member for Abbotsford wondered, why is the government implementing both measures at the same time?

It seems incredible that the government would decide to set up an advisory committee, but would not take the time to listen to it. The government has decided to draft its own legislation, because its ideology is well established and its principles are very clear: it only thinks about the private sector; the rest is no good.

Incidentally, I was surprised to hear the member for Abbotsford say, somewhat naively, that we would lose 10,000 jobs in one fell swoop. At no time did he think or say that, among these 10,000 jobless people, perhaps 9,000 would go to Canada Post. And why not, if there is a need? If 10,000 people are working in remailing companies, it means that a need exists.

It is certainly possible that some of the offices in communities close to the United States would move there. This does not mean though—and the advisory committee will enlighten us on this—that when the mail leaves the United States, Canada Post will agree to deliver mail posted in Hong Kong, for example, at a quarter of the cost of posting it here. It certainly would not bother Hong Kong to put stamps on it because all they do is put it back in the boxes and away it goes. When it only costs a quarter of the price, they laugh their heads off. When the mail arrives here, though, Canadian Post Corporation has to deliver it without getting anything in return.

These consultations should also make it possible to assess the situation of Canadian mail that is turned over to a foreign postal system, that is to say, how it will be delivered. These are things that the advisory committee will surely study, although the government does not want to wait for it.

We are convinced that if Canada Post were to lose the exclusive privilege it currently enjoys, its revenues would be endangered because, contrary to what was just said, remailing would grow exponentially. Even little things within Canada would be affected, and this would have dire consequences. It is unrealistic to think there would not be any repercussions because mail delivery would be re-organized in rural areas. There would certainly be a second-class delivery system because revenues would decline.

Earlier, someone mentioned that Canada Post has been making fabulous amounts of money. It should be said, though, that this is a very recent development. We feel that this is a very ill-advised bill at a time when Canada Post is starting to make money, and deservedly so. We should remember that the money it makes produces a dividend that goes directly to the government. The government does not put this money in the bank or in its pockets but redistributes it to Canadians in general through the services it provides.

Rather than having a dividend flow back to the government to the benefit of all, some people want one or two or three individuals to make money and pocket it. That is the difference between the private sector and the public sector.

The post office is currently a public service. We fail to see why private enterprise should make money and redistribute it outside Canada instead of our government redistributing it inside Canada to meet the needs of Canadians and investing it in various services. The surpluses that Canada Post generates could be used for this purpose. We would not want to see too many surpluses. What is most important to us is high quality mail delivery in Canada.

I represent a rural riding and I see the extent to which the quality of services provided in rural communities is being threatened. Small post offices are being closed. In my own municipality, the post office has not closed yet. Why? I have been told that there were some rather important people in the riding, for which I am glad, who are able to get Canada Post to bend. Post offices were the traditional, cultural gathering place for people to meet, to pick up their mail and to have a chat. It is too bad they are being closed. It is not the Internet that is doing this. It is the desire to make as much profit as possible and keep fewer and fewer post offices open. Today, delivery to rural mailboxes is threatened because of safety. We agree that some roadside mailboxes were not safe for letter carriers. We agree on that. But to say that two thirds of the boxes in Quebec will be eliminated is going a bit too far.

There is something that has not been grasped here. One imagines that they want to save money like this so they can make a company even more profitable for private enterprise when it gets privatized. A little earlier, there was talk about Atomic Energy of Canada. The intention is to privatize everything. They want to privatize the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. All of this because of the dogmatic principle that it is more profitable, which is totally false. They are forgetting that the money that goes to the government gets redistributed to everyone and not merely to two or three people.

In 1981, the federal government gave the new postal authority the autonomy it needed to adopt business objectives that would allow its services to be self-funding. That is why I said a moment ago that Canada Post has not always been profitable. It has only been profitable for a few years. If it is profitable now, why are they so bent on eliminating so many rural mailboxes? It seems that it is precisely to cut back letter carriers’ delivery times, so that mail can be consolidated in a few locations.

A moment ago I was going to say that this hurts private enterprise. A rural mailbox is not used only by Canada Post, it is also used for commercial delivery of leaflets, advertising and local newspapers. Those people will no longer have anywhere to leave that kind of mail, which is often very bulky, if there are no more mailboxes. Someone will tell me that they need only send it through Canada Post and that way it will end up in the community mailboxes, the green boxes. Well no, because often the postage for that much mail, the kind of volume that the weekend advertising flyers or daily newspapers represent, would cost so much that people would not be able to pay for it.

On the other side of the House they were talking about job losses. Taking away rural mailboxes is going to result in jobs being lost.

What about older people who can not get out any further than the end of the road to pick up their mail? I have some of those people in my riding. They get out once a week when their son or daughter or a neighbour takes them to do their errands. As a result of this system, they get their mail once a week. That is really inhuman and unthinkable.

Why did someone think of putting the mail into boxes mounted on posts in front of people’s homes? Because, in the country, people are far from each other and because it was a good system. Often, a mail box could be moved a few metres—at the most, 30, 40 or 50 metres—and the box would no longer be a danger, since it would not be on the edge of the road. Or, the mailbox could be put on the other side of the road.

I made the rounds with some people from Canada Post who told me that if the box were on the other side, people would have to cross the street. However, they prefer to force them into automobiles to drive to a community mailbox, in a place that is often just as dangerous, in order to collect their mail. We see very clearly that their arguments are convoluted and give no assurance that they will provide the same quality of service as they did previously. It is all to ensure that Canada Post makes the most money possible so that they can sell this crown corporation at the highest price.

At present, despite all of Canada Post’s profits, this corporation quite properly still provides the equivalent of $60 million in free postal service to Parliament and the military. Often, it is the only way for members to keep in touch with their fellow citizens. Many of our voters do not buy a newspaper or watch the news on television, but when we mail them a pamphlet, they read it. This service is open to everyone in the House. That $60 million per year is money very well spent. If it were privatized, that might be something we would lose.

It goes all over the country. It is an extraordinary service. There are also services for the blind and other services that deliver to the far north at the same price. That is something very important in our country: to be able to provide the same quality of service to everybody at the same price. Just because someone lives far out in the country does not mean that it should be different. People are useful in the country. If you are a farmer, you should be able to correspond with all the other people and receive things from other people at the same price.

In my view, the purpose of this bill is to prepare for privatization, not to protect jobs in Canada. Those jobs would be saved in any event. Canada Post would open new buildings and get them back that way.

A few years ago, Canada Post initiated legal proceedings against several remailers. Earlier, someone said there were never any problems. Not so, the dispute has been going on for years. Between the proceedings and the appeals, the issue was brought before several courts. We know how long this all takes. In every instance, the courts upheld Canada Post's interpretation of the act, under which it has an exclusive privilege.

This exclusive privilege ought to be maintained, and the committee that was put in place must be allowed to review the issue and report back to us. Should we ever happen upon an appropriate middle course in the legislation, we will take it. Currently, I believe that Bill C-14 is really far from meeting our expectations regarding a universal postal service for all Canadians.

In fact, the Ontario court ruled in 2004 that section 14 of the Canada Post Corporation Act gives the corporation the exclusive privilege of collecting mail. It was first determined in 2002, then confirmed in 2004, and again in 2005, not to mention that the court of appeal for Ontario upheld the interpretation of the Canadian legislation. Proceedings have been underway for several years, seven or eight years maybe. Over a 20-year period, it is fair to say that there have been proceedings underway half of the time. We have heard that there had never been any problems in 20 years. Sorry, but there have been problems for the past eight years.

This is an attempt to deregulate the market, but the Conservatives would like us to believe that this is not deregulation.

What is their conception of deregulation, if they claim that this is not deregulation? When something is rigid, when it is dismantled and when everyone can get their hands in the cookie jar, we think it is because deregulation has just occurred. The government lets those hands get in the cookie jar. Until then, that was not allowed. This is what deregulation is about. At least, it seems to me that this is what it is. Otherwise, I did not understand how people get their hands on the cookies.

The Bloc Québécois feels that before restricting or eliminating the exclusive privilege of Canada Post, the government should conduct a public and rather exhaustive review of the issue, and not simply decide whether we are in favour or opposed to private business, as we hear in this House. We must also assess the impact on the requirement to provide a universal and affordable public service. That is the whole issue.

If we privatize and sell Canada Post, postal rates will no longer be controlled by the government. They will be controlled by private enterprise, and we know what the consequences of that have been in other areas. Private businesses apply various rates and keep increasing them. They obviously do not deliver mail in the far north, or in small remote communities, for the same rate.

Canada Post is making money. With operating profits amounting to $300 million, as someone said earlier, the corporation pays income tax as well as a dividend. This is a money-making operation for Canada. Of course, companies would also pay income tax, but we all know that people would not have a hard time avoiding it.

We have to assess how a legislative change like this one would directly or indirectly affect the financial viability of the Canada Post Corporation and its ability to keep providing a universal, affordable service. Universal because it is everywhere and affordable because it is provided at a reasonable cost. It is not at all clear that this would be the case if things change.

The Canada Post Corporation must also devise a plan to ensure the survival of its rural service. There is a reason the corporation is trying to get rid of roadside mailboxes and has closed almost all small post offices. In response to an inquiry by the minister responsible, the Canada Post Corporation said that such an operation costs between $475 million and $640 million over more than five years.

The corporation needs money to carry out these transformations. It is not news to anyone here that the corporation is moving toward full automation for mail sorting, and when that happens, major changes will take place. These changes are already in the works, and we believe that the government needs to take control of the changes that are about to happen, not leave it up to private enterprise.

I would like to propose an amendment to the motion for second reading of Bill C-14. I move, seconded by the member for Richmond—Arthabaska:

That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following:

Bill C-14, An Act to amend the Canada Post Corporation Act, be not now read a second time, but that it be read a second time this day six months hence.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

The amendment is in order.

The hon. member for Eglinton—Lawrence.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to my hon. colleague's presentation. He began with words like “principle” and “naiveté”. Are we here today discussing the principle of employing 10,000 people, or are we discussing another principle? I would like to see a discussion on this.

When we talk about letters that must be sent by mail, we must also consider all the advertisements and flyers, everything that does not constitute letters that Canada Post currently distributes.

Personally, I am not naive. As I have said in other presentations, this bill is not a question of rurality, but aims simply to determine how to solve a problem caused by a difference of opinion concerning the terminology in the act that has been in place for the past 20 years.

I have a question for the member who proposed another amendment here today. Does the member really believe that if all the revenue from this commercial remailing activity went to Canada Post, the Canadian public could expect dividends totalling more than $600,000? At present, Canada Post gives only 1% of all its revenue to the Canadian government. If—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

I must interrupt the hon. member for Eglinton—Lawrence.

The hon. member for Brome—Missisquoi.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I think it is actually a matter of principle. In my opinion, the bill truly shows that we could retain a certain part of the private enterprise. It is not about destroying private enterprise. Far from it.

As a colleague said earlier, Canada is in favour of private enterprise. That is not the issue.

What we want is to ensure that Canada Post provides universal and affordable service everywhere. I do not agree with the naive belief, on the other side, that withdrawing this right would result in the loss of 10,000 jobs. It was never a question of this right being withdrawn. That decision should be based on a study by the advisory committee and not on the principle of the bill. If remailing were eliminated, it would not necessarily result in the loss of 10,000 jobs because almost an equal number of jobs would be recovered.

[Louise Thibault, Independent, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will keep my question short to allow other members of this House to put their questions.

My hon. colleague has no doubt heard, as I did, Liberal and Conservative members shout themselves hoarse defending 10,000 jobs. I am not saying that we should not shout ourselves horse defending jobs in this country. But did the hon. member for Brome—Missisquoi who just spoke notice that, regarding the manufacturing and forestry sectors, both of which are going through a real crisis, while the people across the way were in a position to address the issue, they did not make any noise about 10,000, 15,000 or 20,000 jobs?

All of a sudden, they bring up this totally opportunistic argument.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent question.

It is true that they defend jobs only when a bill is concerned. When manufacturing jobs are lost, the government just says it has allocated $1 billion, even though it realizes that Quebec will get only $76 million a year over three years. That is nothing.

It is true that the Liberals and Conservatives get up in arms over potential job losses, but not over the jobs that are actually being lost every day. Yesterday, it was Shermag's turn, but no one on the other side stood up to say how terrible it was that Shermag was going bankrupt.

Jobs are being lost in my riding. In fact, on May 9, a company will declare bankruptcy. But the members on the other side will not get upset.

The decrease in the number of rural roadside mailboxes by Canada Post will cost jobs. In any event, that is why they are taking that step. I did not hear the members on the other side of this House say they were concerned that Canada Post was cutting jobs.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have been following this issue very closely because the question of where Canada Post is going in terms of privatizing service is a discussion that we must have with the Canadian people.

In my riding of Timmins—James Bay, for example, the downtown postal service in the city of Timmins that supplies the entire city now is no longer able to provide postal service because it is being shipped out and privatized.

I wonder what other businesses in the world would actually not provide a service when it is their primary service. The primary service of Canada Post in Timmins is to provide parcel post, pick up and postal service for citizens. Yet, it is unable to do that.

Workers are being told they cannot provide the service. Businesses in the downtown are no longer able to use this service because it has been shipped out to a local drug store. Canada Post does not sell hair sprays; it does not sell toothpaste. It is in the business of serving the public with a postal service.

We are seeing the same situation in our rural communities where Canada Post is walking away, leaving boxes out on rural roads, as opposed to real people who service the public.

I guess the question I have for my hon. colleague is, where else but the House of Commons should we be debating the fact that a national service, the postal service, is being shipped off, cut apart, split apart and citizens are being denied service that they have come to expect?

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I agree completely with my colleague that this is where we should be debating this issue. In our view, this debate is premature. We should wait until the advisory committee has looked at the issue. The people on the committee work in the field and are much more in touch with reality. We are ill equipped to make decisions before the advisory committee, which has just been announced, has been appointed.

However, I recognize that Canada Post will not provide better service by closing offices. This is incredible. Canada Post is closing offices, but jobs are being lost elsewhere at the same time. Yet jobs have been lost in the offices that have been closed, and Canada Post is having to retrain people and assign them to new duties elsewhere. This is truly incomprehensible, because Canada Post is making money.

People ask me if things are going well elsewhere. The mail service in the United States was losing money at a terrific rate. The Americans restructured the service, without closing even the tiniest post office in the smallest town in rural Nebraska, and succeeded in turning a profit.