Mrs. Bourque and Mr. Bickerton, I thank you for your presence this morning.
I would like to come back to the matter of the postal service in rural areas. That situation has happened in my riding. The day the complaint is lodged, mail delivery stops. There's a reason to that. One could claim that the situation is dangerous today, that a solution will be found and that mail will stop being delivered a month from now. It it's dangerous, it has to stop immediately.
This has happened in my riding and, since there are 52 communities, it will certainly happen again somewhere else.
The problem is only starting across the country. I had one situation, and I have 52 communities.
I have two questions. One of them is, what is the process for logging a complaint? It's not even a complaint, it's a statement that they will not deliver because it's dangerous, and then the employer has no choice but to cut deliveries. Canada Post knows, and the union knows, that my other 51 communities are going to have the same problem. I'd like to know--and I will ask the same question of management, so in all fairness I'm telling you that now--what efforts are being made to prevent that problem, because every time there's a problem, the people around this table are the ones who get the calls.
When the situation arose in my riding, it wasn't Canada Post's problem. Their solution was: “Make a choice. You go to the post office or you have community mailboxes.” That's their policy, and it is an alternative. The union position is that they don't deliver because it's dangerous. What real honest effort has been made by the employer, and by the union, to attempt to prevent this problem spreading across the country? Because we know it will.