I want to thank the committee for allowing us to express the opinion of the citizens of Laval.
I am accompanied by Martin Gratton, who works in the urban development department and who negotiated with Canada Post as part of this new program.
We have been faced with an unacceptable unilateral decision by Canada Post to abandon home mail delivery. I note in passing that some 600 jobs have been lost in Laval.
Furthermore, from the moment the administrative decision to abandon home mail delivery was implemented, municipal councillors and the administration of the City of Laval encountered a failure to listen and cooperate on the part of Canada Post, even though the municipal council passed a resolution in October 2014 expressing our willingness to cooperate with the corporation based on informed, reciprocal exchanges. That resolution remained a dead letter and the exchange has remained a one-way affair.
In view of the general outcry from our citizens, we had virtually no choice but to turn to the courts. A negotiated solution would have allowed us to consider friendlier arrangements that would have both met Canada Post's cost-effectiveness objectives and helped to provide the delivery services that all Canadian citizens are entitled to expect.
In addition to that aspect, it would also have helped to avoid safety problems and to reduce the anxiety actually experienced by our elderly and disabled citizens residing in the old neighbourhoods of Laval. Canada Post's decision resulted in an anarchic installation of mailboxes, and location selection absolutely failed to reflect certain existing urban realities. We would have liked the corporation to be more conciliatory, more humane in the way it achieves its objectives.
What do we want, in addition to a radical change in philosophy and approach to its clientele?
To put it plainly, we want a return to home delivery in the old, more densely populated neighbourhoods of Laval. We believe this service should be maintained because it more directly concerns seniors and persons with reduced mobility. We therefore ask that all community mailboxes be removed from those old neighbourhoods.
In the newer neighbourhoods, we want Canada Post to conduct a systematic review of each of the mailbox installations in close cooperation with our officials to ensure they meet safety and traffic flow criteria. In cases where a situation poses a problem, those boxes should be reinstalled elsewhere with the consent of the city's services. Canada Post must also restore the venues where the mailboxes thus moved were located.
Fourth, for all new developments in Laval, future installations of community mailboxes will have to be validated by means of a clear and rigorous process in which our municipal services are consulted to ensure that the mailboxes are consistent with the municipal regulatory framework. We want Canada Post to address this matter as a good, environmentally concerned citizen by including paper recycling boxes in these mailbox installations.
Many of our fellow citizens in new neighbourhoods are adjusting very well to the mailboxes. The configuration of these new installations obviously assists in that respect. That is not the case in the old, more densely populated neighbourhoods, and that fact must be taken into account.
In closing, I repeat that we entirely understand that postal service must meet cost-effectiveness and efficiency criteria.
Mr. Chair and ladies and gentlemen, thank you for listening to us. We are prepared to answer your questions.