Evidence of meeting #13 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was corporation.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
4:20 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canada Post Corporation
It is a very important emergency for the country, and absolutely we are working very closely with the Red Cross. Making funds available to Fort McMurray residents who are no longer in either Edmonton or Calgary is a difficult task. They're not able to physically collect their debit cards, so we are working on many aspects of our money transfer capabilities. We're working on the essential packages. The packages nowadays include such important things as urgent medication and wedding rings and wedding gowns. We have been working all hands on deck to make sure that the experience is managed carefully.
We have announced a mail-forwarding emergency measures process where anyone can go online and request a change of address. We will take care of their mail that is held up, a lot of it in Edmonton. As well, their future purchases coming through will be redirected to the address of their choice.
It's a very important piece. In fact mail service reminds Canadians that there is a sense of normalcy if they're starting to get their mail. It's a very important aspect, and we take that very seriously.
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
Steven Blaney Conservative Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chopra.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank you. As former Minister of Veterans Affairs, I really appreciated the leaflets you had produced to commemorate Remembrance Day that included a photograph of a little boy seeing his father go off to war and John McCrae's poem. I had those leaflets framed and put them on my desk.
On April 9, 2017, I'm sure you are planning a beautiful testimonial for the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge, which coincides with Canada's 150th anniversary. They say that was basically the birth of our country.
Speaking of the centennial, during the first 100 years of Canada Post's existence, your corporation delivered parcels and was profitable. So there was a business model that has evolved based on the Canadian population. We have seen that you have had to make business decisions that were not always popular, but that stemmed from your market analysis.
In my riding of Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, many constituents have rural boxes or access to centralized mail. I do. I live in Lévis, in the Saint-Rédempteur neighbourhood, and my mailbox is fortunately not too far.
In terms of fairness, I would like to point out that three out of four Canadians have no home delivery service. With you running a deficit in terms of your operations, it is as if three Canadians with no home mail service were being asked to fund a door-to-door delivery for the others. The discussions that will take place during consultations will definitely be interesting.
You are giving us an overview of the situation. You are telling us that Canada Post is at a crossroads owing to a dramatic drop in terms of mail. You're saying that the increase in parcels does not cover the losses caused by the drop in home-delivered mail. Ultimately, as I was saying earlier, you have a sword of Damocles hanging over your head—a $6-billion solvency deficit that is not accounted for. In addition, your momentum is being impeded. The nature of my colleague's questions indicated that the decisions of the current government to suspend your action plan will result in an additional loss of revenue of nearly half a billion dollars.
How do you see the consultation process? What would be your recommendations on the work we, parliamentarians, will have to do to avoid throwing out the baby with the bathwater? We want to keep Canada Post, but we want Canada Post to meet the contemporary needs of a changing market by using, as you said, the Internet, and by using online accounts. We also want to get our parcels and we want to know what your operating principles are. Which of your recommendations on those issues could be taken into account by the committee?
4:25 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Mr. Blaney, I thank you for providing both the question and the answer, but now we are out of time.
We'll go to the last five-minute round, with Mr. Grewal.
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
Raj Grewal Liberal Brampton East, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Chopra and your colleagues, for coming here today. We really appreciate it.
Mr. Chopra, my questions are predominantly to you, and they'll be yes-or-no questions. If you could do your best to answer them, I'd really appreciate it.
You are the president and CEO of Canada Post?
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
Raj Grewal Liberal Brampton East, ON
So the buck stops with you, sir, on the performance of your corporation?
4:25 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canada Post Corporation
That is correct.
4:25 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canada Post Corporation
Yes. We have published that for 2015.
4:25 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canada Post Corporation
Yes, I have read the report.
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
Raj Grewal Liberal Brampton East, ON
Under the accountability section, in number 13, it says, “Where Canada Post plans to change delivery methods, Canada Post will communicate, either in person or in writing, with affected [consumers] and communities at least one month in advance to explain decisions and explore options...”
Was this done before door-to-door delivery was ended?
4:25 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canada Post Corporation
That remains a charter, a guiding principle. We live that every single day.
4:25 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canada Post Corporation
Yes, we continue to follow the charter that you're referring to in every action, not just in action of a service.
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
Raj Grewal Liberal Brampton East, ON
Mr. Chopra, I don't mean to be rude. I'm just going to keep going because I don't have much time and I'm very scared of the chair.
Mr. Chopra, in 2013, the five-point action plan came into place. You suspended it in 2015. For those two years, can you quickly sum up the impacts on the bottom line of implementing the plan?
4:25 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canada Post Corporation
The impact on the bottom line is that we are barely breaking even. We are barely breaking even. We still have a $6-billion solvency deficit, and it continues to be a challenge because we expect the letter mail volumes to continue to decline, which they are doing, on average, by 5.5% to 6%. We expect that trend to continue.
The impact on the bottom line, as mentioned in the annual report as well, is that we are barely breaking even.
4:25 p.m.
Liberal
Raj Grewal Liberal Brampton East, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chopra.
My riding of Brampton East is home to many immigrants. It's the second most visible minority riding in the entire country—60% of my riding is South Asian. A lot of my constituents send money overseas.
Has Canada Post done any research into providing a low-cost service to Canadians who send money abroad to families?
4:25 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canada Post Corporation
Thank you so much for this question. In fact, we are the number one partner...particularly in Brampton, where we have several branches of Canada Post that have the lowest-cost money transfer opportunity through our partnership with MoneyGram, and we continue to enhance the capability. In fact, Mr. Grewal, just last year MoneyGram added 100,000 post offices in India alone, let alone the other global reach we have. It's a service that is very well liked, particularly by our diverse communities, and we are very proud to be serving them.
We even try to encourage our employees in communities that they live and serve in to be part of those communities. As you know, that helps our customers feel comfortable, particularly when we are able to speak to them. In addition to serving in our official languages, English and French, we are very proud to be able to serve them in other languages, which our employees speak as well.
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
Raj Grewal Liberal Brampton East, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chopra.
This seems to be a classic business problem. You need to increase revenues or decrease expenses in order to start hitting your targets. One of the things that I found really interesting in your annual report is your concept store in 2015 in Richmond Hill.
How is that doing? Can you elaborate a bit on what's going on there?
4:30 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canada Post Corporation
This is an example of learning new ideas from customers. What we found is that when many of the customers with young children are ordering online, they're not home during the daytime. In the evenings, when they go to pick up their parcel, which as you know is increasingly more of what we're delivering, they have young children in the car seat, and they have to unbuckle them. Maybe it's snowing. And they have to walk into the local postal outlet and then come back. It is not a very convenient experience. So we introduced North America's first drive-through parcel centre. It has been embraced by the community. It is a concept store. We're learning from that. The adoption during the holiday season was close to 70%. Overall, adoption is picking up.
We have also provided 24-7 self-serve facilities for small businesses. We heard from a lot of small businesses that when work is finished and they have five or six or seven parcels to ship, we are closed. So now they can come in and self-induct, in a secure environment, and get a bar-coded receipt from that 24-7 service. Canadians who forget to buy an Xpresspost package and have to send an important document tomorrow can now go in the middle of the night and pick that up.
4:30 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
I'm sorry, Mr. Grewal, we have to cut it down.
Because of my own interventions, we've run a little over time, but I will allow the NDP their last three-minute round, and then we'll quickly pause and bring in our second set of witnesses.
Please, for three minutes, Madam Trudel.
