Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen of the committee.
Let me first thank you for giving me the opportunity to appear before the committee this morning.
I really welcome the opportunity to speak to you about the very important work that you have before you.
You have been entrusted with a heavy responsibility.
We understand the importance of moving the work along, so the comments I have to make this morning, Mr. Chairman, are more in the nature of I think relatively simple matters for you to take under what I hope will be positive consideration. This is a very important bill, Bill C-2, the Federal Accountability Act, and as CEO of Canada Post, I really appreciate the opportunity that I have to spend a few minutes to speak to it.
We appreciate the Government of Canada's efforts to bring forward measures to help strengthen accountability and increase transparency and oversight in government, and we know they are widely appreciated in this country.
Of late, we at Canada Post have been very proactive in this area. We have introduced measures, including our own whistle-blowing policy that came into effect January 1, 2005, and a renewed and strengthened conflict of interest policy that provides more clarity and guidance to all our employees in how they should conduct themselves with personal integrity, honesty, and obviously diligence in the performance of all of their duties. In addition, Mr. Chairman and ladies and gentlemen of the committee, the governance committee of the Canada Post board is led by Gordon Feeney, a very strong business-oriented chairperson whom many of you have met. We have also put in place a number of new business processes for the approval and retention of all records relating to travel and hospitality expenses that apply to board members, and of course to the senior managerial team, including me.
Nonetheless, I think that some aspects of the bill could be improved a bit. I do not want to suggest any major change. In fact, I can give you a copy of the language used in the bill, if it can be helpful.
to move things along more quickly.
As many of you know, Canada Post is a unique crown corporation. It is very large: it is the sixth-largest employer in Canada, with 71,000 employees; it has $7 billion in revenue; it is perhaps the most complex crown corporation in Canada. The presence of the company in every province and in most towns and cities across the country makes it in fact one of the most widely recognized names in Canada.
We're very pleased to talk to you about the brand of Canada Post. Some of you will know that Canada Post is recognized as one of the top ten brands of business corporations in Canada. This, I think, reflects the confidence that both our business customers across this country and consumers alike repose in Canada Post. That has everything to do, Mr. Chair and ladies and gentlemen of this committee, with the security of the mail. The brand of Canada Post is based upon the security of the mail.
The world has changed in the past five years, and all aspects of security everywhere have taken on far greater importance for every public official than they did even five years ago. That is also the case for Canada Post--perhaps more so, because of the importance of the security of the mail as the key cornerstone of the brand of this company.
The security of the mail is threatened every day. I don't need to tell some of you--many of you--with whom I've spoken personally in the course of my first year as CEO of this company about issues relating to identity theft, but the security of the mail is threatened in other ways.
Hardly a week goes by, Mr. Chair and ladies and gentlemen of this committee, that our operations are not interrupted at our largest hub facility, for example, in Toronto and Vancouver, because of concerns over suspicious parcels and letters. It stops the operation; we have to put in place different handling procedures to make sure that the security of the mail is uppermost in our minds before that piece of mail moves on to the next stage of processing.
Every day in the course of their duties, our employees are involved in security operations, in investigative operations. These investigative operations often include alliances with some of the strongest investigating forces in the world--not just in Canada, but in other parts of the world--so our people work very hard to reinforce the security of mail operations.
In order to protect the corporation's ability to properly carry out its mandate and ensure not only the security of the mail and employees involved in transmitting mail but also the security of management, we must send out a message that states that we take the prosecution of offences very seriously.
Any infraction, any offence, that would threaten the security of the mail or undermine people's confidence in our ability to safeguard the security of the mail is taken very seriously at Canada Post. These are criminal offences—tampering with the mail—and that has certainly helped us in the course of the years to reinforce the importance we attach to that and why it has become the cornerstone of the brand. But I think it's fair to say, and I mean no criticism whatsoever here, that attorneys general and public prosecutors in the provinces have a lot of difficulty giving the kind of priority that obviously we would give to infractions that would undermine the confidence we all need to retain in the security of Canada's mail operations.
So it is for this reason, Mr. Chairman, that we at Canada Post applaud the idea of creating a Director of Public Prosecutions, and we feel the office, if its attention could be directed to offences relating to the security of the mail, would be a very positive thing for Canada Post. It would open an avenue where greater priority and attention could be applied to the investigation and the prosecution of these infractions, similar to what is available for Canada Elections Act offences and Financial Administration Act offences.
Canada Post has a specific interest in this aspect. Like the offences in these other acts, there are a series of mail-related offences respecting theft of identity, national security, and the use of mail for terrorist purposes. In the wake of the horrible events of 9/11, some of you will have heard about threats through the mail, where anthrax and other suspicious substances were being put through mail operations. This happens, still, on a regular basis. Thankfully, we have in place the means to investigate anything suspicious as soon as it arises. But being able to prosecute these offences quickly and with diligence is I think a reinforcing measure that the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions could help.
As I said at the beginning, Mr. Chairman, we have suggested language. We don't think this would be a big change to what is currently before you and your colleagues on the committee. We think it could be done relatively simply, and certainly it is being put forward in the spirit of minor adjustments that would improve the act.
Canada Post understands the objective of greater transparency and better accountability for the Government of Canada and supports the principles enshrined in the bill at hand.
As you know, Canada Post generates $7 billion in annual revenues. It is probably not well-known, Mr. Chairman, that 95% of that revenue comes from Canadian businesses, big and small. To the 14 million addresses, it's very important to them that we bring their messages to their customers. However, we operate in a very, very competitive environment, more competitive than I think many of you would have thought.
