Government Operations Committee on June 22nd, 2006

[Moya Greene]

It depends. We need to look at what the volumes are going to be. We have to make sure that our rates are going to at least cover our costs.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Yes, I understand that. When would those negotiations begin?

[Moya Greene]

I'd have to check that for you. I'll have to ask our commercial reps who have the libraries as part of their portfolio. I will get back to you on that.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Maybe I'll make this a comment more than a question--maybe you don't have the answer and maybe it isn't planned, as of yet, to change things. What I'd like to see is an extension of the library book rate to all library materials. There are a number of other literacy tools that libraries use. It could be DVDs, those types of things, and I think it would be important that these be included in the next negotiations, that the book rate be extended to other materials for libraries.

Maybe I'll give that as a consideration for you. It is something I'm hearing a fair bit about from the libraries, that it would be an important thing as the new media develop.

[Moya Greene]

Yes, we have those discussions with libraries and others across the country as to what should and should not be included in the commercial agreements. I'm sure this will come up.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Do I take it from your comments that you are in favour of extending it to things other than books?

[Moya Greene]

I'm not going to go that far.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

Okay.

In terms of rural post offices, certainly, we have issues, specifically in my constituency. You talked about extenuating circumstances where rural post offices may close. Obviously, in Alberta specifically, there's an issue of labour force. It's very, very difficult to get people to work in post offices because the competition is so rigorous. It's going to take some particular efforts on behalf of Canada Post to ensure that rural post offices remain open in the coming years, specifically in competitive labour markets. What are you doing to ensure you can maintain service in these markets?

[Moya Greene]

You're absolutely correct. There are some parts of the country where labour markets are very, very tight. What we do in that case is to advertise positions regionally, and nationally in some cases, so we do go to extraordinary efforts to try to find people. For the most part, I have not heard--I'll have to check--that while we're out searching.... Obviously, there may be a couple of months or a few months where we have temporary people or part-time people there, but I have not heard that we're not able--

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

I'll give you the story.

I'd like you to look into Little Smoky, Alberta. We have a situation there where that circumstance is happening, right as we speak, so look into that. Look into places like Hines Creek and Cleardale. Those areas are experiencing these types of things. Certainly, there are stories, and I think if you investigate them a little bit further, you'll find out it's tied to the amount Canada Post is willing to pay these people, because the market is so.... And we're talking about closing post offices as a result of these labour issues.

With regard to rural communities, you mentioned that roads are changing and maybe they're different from what they were in the past. In my community, the roads have only improved since they started delivering mail into these communities. The roads have been built up and are bigger and nicer and there's more room to get off the roads. Yet we're still seeing these different issues with regard to safety. Obviously, all of us being Canadians, we know that winter is probably the biggest issue with regard to road safety, if we have blind spots and that kind of thing. That's not going to change.

What are you doing, and how are you going to address this? I'm very concerned that as we reach the winter months, we'll have hundreds and hundreds of mail delivery folk saying, “I can't do it. It's unsafe for me to go out there.” What we'll be doing then is forcing all of the people to go to other locations and face those roads. I think it will be a major safety concern as we reach winter if we don't have something to ensure that we'll have mail service throughout the winter.

[Moya Greene]

I agree with you. We are doing everything we can. As I mentioned, proactively we're trying to figure out where we might have a problem down the road. I'd like to be able to say to every single Canadian, exactly where you're getting your mail today is where you're going to get your mail forever and all time, but I can't.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

So you're suggesting that because of our winter roads, you might have to move to other methods of delivery?

[Moya Greene]

It depends if it's a safety issue, Mr. Warkentin.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Thank you very much. We've gone over our time once more.

I will turn to Madame Thibault.

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

Ms. Greene, did you appeal the arbitration decision? Is it still before the Superior Court? Has the case dealing with arbitrator Dulude's ruling been heard? Is it resolved now, or is your appeal yet to be heard?

[Moya Greene]

The arbitrator ruled in our favour. As far as I know, the only thing he referred to did not deal with article 29. We fully complied with article 29. So, we can continue to move through the seven steps of the process to transfer the mail

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

I will check my information in anticipation of next fall. Thank you, Ms. Greene.

We are very stubborn over here, so I'd like to come back to the question raised by my colleague with respect to the closing. We talked about Quebec City, but we have exactly the same concern in relation to every other major mail processing centre in Quebec.

In reply to one of my questions earlier, you stated that five centres in Toronto have now been consolidated into two, I believe. I don't remember the exact numbers, but in Quebec City, this phenomenon is known as “montréalisation”. Operations are being transferred to Montreal. Of course, we all love that great and beautiful city, but every time operations are cut back in major centres in Quebec and Canada, something is taken away, and that will eventually have an impact. That is what I believe, so this isn't really a question.

You talked about Toronto, Calgary, Western Canada, Eastern Canada and the Maritimes. You were appointed a year ago and you have financial targets. In fact, you tend to talk about the company, whereas I would prefer that you talk about the Crown corporation. So, you have to meet your financial targets. You told us that you ask nothing of Canadian taxpayers. On the other hand, you most certainly have a strategic plan. At some point, you and your management teams sit down and take a look at your operations. I know that studies are carried out at the local and regional levels, but the final decision is made by the person who is the equivalent of the deputy minister. And very often as well, the decision is made at the political level.

Somewhere there must be planning that allows you to justify cutbacks. You will say there is no reduction in service, but I'm sure there must be some document somewhere on which you relied to make such important decisions as merging three or four sortation centres or shutting down one in Quebec City and moving the work to Montreal.

[Moya Greene]

It's not a question of service. Service is not being reduced. The fact is that service in Quebec City is now the best in the country. Mail is delivered there on time in 98 per cent of cases. So, no one can say there have been any cuts in service. Nor have there been any job losses. This is an operational matter.

With all due respect, Mr. Bonin, I'd say that decisions on operational matters must be made by people with expertise in local operations. They are the ones that made this decision, because they know how to change the mail handling process to ensure better service.

As regards Quebec City, I would remind all Committee members that our future expenditures in Quebec City will amount to $90 million annually.

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

Yes, you said that earlier.

[Moya Greene]

They are the ones that make these decisions.

We now have access to new equipment for transportation. They can get the mail out in different ways. In fact, if we're talking about Montreal, it's important to remember that 70 per cent of the mail is addressed to people living in that city. So, for them, this is a service improvement.

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

Based on what you were saying earlier, a letter leaving a given city or town en route to Quebec City will now go to Montreal, and then be returned to a city or town located some 30 kilometers away.

I'm sorry, Ms. Greene, but my time is up. I'll ask you that question another time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Ms. Nash.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Ms. Greene, I want to recall for the committee that when the Conservative Party was in opposition last year they said they opposed the closing of the Quebec sorting centre and that they would review it.

Now, Minister Cannon has said:

...the members of Parliament and ministers from the Quebec City area did fulfill their election promises by thoroughly reviewing and examining the closure issue.

He said he had obtained information from Canada Post showing “that the quality of mail delivery in that area will be improved”. I guess that's what you are describing for us. I can only assume that this is not just verbal information, that in fact there are appropriate written documents. I wanted to echo the request from Monsieur Nadeau that we should be able to reassure ourselves as a committee that the service to Quebec City, and to eastern Quebec as well, is not suffering because of the closure of the processing plant.

And I guess I want to ask you, if these are inconclusive or unsatisfactory, would you be willing to work with parliamentarians and others to do an independent assessment to make sure that the quality of service is not suffering for people in Quebec?

[Moya Greene]

Madam Nash, the quality of service and the timeliness of service is done independently, for all posts, by IBM. We don't do it because we need to have agreements with posts around the world as to how long we will take to deliver their mail. In Canada, we have service commitments as part of our policy framework: service commitments inside individual cities, service commitments between cities, and service commitments between provinces.

In order to make sure that we are respecting these commitments, internationally and locally and regionally and nationally, IBM is the third party--it's completely independent of Canada Post--that does the checks on how service delivery is affected. They do it at all seasons of the year, so we know how we're doing in the winter as well as in the summer. That research is available, as soon as we get it from IBM, on our website. So it is done.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

All right, good. Thank you.

My last question is around energy efficiency and the environment. Our party, the NDP, launched a green transportation policy recently, which looks at a number of ways to increase energy efficiency. Maybe you could tell us a bit about the greening of Canada Post. What measures are you putting in place to ensure that energy efficiency is increasing and greenhouse gas emissions are declining?