Thank you.
Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity to address this committee today.
My name is Susan Margles and I am vice-president of government relations and policy at Canada Post. It is my job and the job of my team to ensure that parliamentarians are fully informed about Canada Post and that we maintain a productive relationship.
As the postal administration for this country, Canada Post has a statutory mandate to provide universal postal service to all Canadians, regardless of where they live, and to do so while remaining financially self-sufficient.
Despite considerable challenges, our corporation generated $7.3 billion of revenue in 2009 and has remained profitable for 15 consecutive years. In the past 10 years, Canada Post has paid the Government of Canada almost $400 million in income taxes and another $350 million in dividends.
Last September, the Government of Canada introduced the Canadian Postal Service Charter, which outlines the services Canadians can expect to receive from Canada Post. Canada Post continues to meet our published service standards and provide Canadians with postal service that is reliable and secure.
Traditionally, postal administrations have covered the cost of their service obligations through revenues generated from the reserved service area for letters, as well as revenues derived from competitive services such as parcels and direct marketing.
Section 14 of the Canada Post Corporation Act gives us the sole and exclusive privilege of collecting, transmitting, and delivering letters. Part 15 of Bill C-9 amends this section of the Canada Post Corporation Act and permits others to collect letters in Canada and then send them for delivery outside of this country.
International remailers are countries usually associated with foreign postal administrations. They take large volumes of mail produced and collected from Canadian businesses and ship it abroad to be inducted into foreign postal systems.
Remailers have been increasing their presence in Canada over the last 20 years. In the past, Canada Post has taken the position that international remailers contravene the exclusive privilege given to Canada Post. We have taken legal action against some international remailers and succeeded in court. Injunctions were awarded against two international remailers that would have prevented them from operating in this country.
In 2007 the government introduced legislation that would permit letter exporters or remailers to legally collect letters in Canada and send them for delivery outside of this country. Following the introduction of this legislation, the injunctions we had were stayed until the intentions of Parliament were known. The current injunctions expire in December 2010.
Canada Post's position in terms of part 15 is that, as our shareholder, it is up to the Government of Canada to determine what areas of the postal market to keep reserved for Canada Post or to open up to competition. As our president and CEO, Moya Greene, said recently at the Senate finance committee, if the letter market is open to competitors, Canada Post:
...will vigorously compete for that business. Just because a market is competitive does not mean that Canada Post is out of the game.
In order to remain competitive and deliver on our service commitment, Canada Post is modernizing its infrastructure equipment and technology.
As part of our Postal Transformation Strategy, we will invest more than $2 billion to purchase new equipment and upgrade systems and facilities across the country. Next month, we will open a new state-of-the-art mail processing plant in Winnipeg. This is our first new mail plant in Canada in more than 20 years. We are changing the way we deliver in order to ensure that we can continue to deliver in the future.
These investments and others will ensure that Canada Post is able to maintain its service commitments, compete successfully in the marketplace, and remain financially self-sufficient.
Thank you. I'd be pleased to answer any questions.