Government Operations Committee on Sept. 26th, 2016

[Sylvain Lapointe]

Whether you change the leadership at Canada Post or not will be a decision of the sole shareholder, the government. However, it's a sad day when the employees and the union believe more in the company than the people who direct it.

It will be up to the shareholder, but it would be nice to have people who actually believe that Canada Post can succeed. We do.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you.

Mr. Duguay, you have the floor.

[Alain Duguay]

I feel there has been a breach of trust among the public, employees, and Canada Post, particularly over the past few years. As I said, social peace reigned for 14 years, but absolutely nothing has happened in the past five or six.

There are two conflicting visions: the vision of reduced services, which Canada Post is putting forward, and that of the public and certain groups that are demanding that new services be offered to ensure Canada Post's continued existence. If cuts are made, I am virtually certain there will be even bigger operating losses than if new services are offered.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you.

My next question really goes to the corporate structure and the future services that might be offered. When I look at the corporate structure of Canada Post, I see Purolator offering competing parcel service with what we look at as being the sweetest plum, the most profitable area of the business. I look at SCI Group, which provides logistic services. Again, it's largely owned by Canada Post, but it seems that the logistic service of Canada Post competes with one of its own subsidiaries. And Innovapost, which provides IT services to a Canada Post group of companies, is 2% privately owned.

I've been hearing this from union members in my province. Is there something strange in this relationship where the more profitable lines of business of Canada Post seem to be competing with private entities that it also owns, and how does that play out in the union relationship?

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

You only have about a minute left. Is there someone you want to direct your question to?

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Yes: to Mr. Lapointe.

[Sylvain Lapointe]

It's an interesting situation. I don't know how it will play out, but certainly if there are areas where it is possible to get more revenue, we believe they should be directly integrated into Canada Post. That's very much feasible. It's an interesting situation, but again, it will necessitate an analysis by the shareholder to see how that plays out, and to the ultimate result of a Canada Post....

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Chair, I just want to quickly add that at least on our side, we'd greatly appreciate it if the witnesses would make themselves available for written questions from the committee. This is the consultation. We are open to things beyond the task force report, open to considering issues of privatization and new services. Mr. Perez mentioned that he would like to see a new consultation. I'm afraid this is it. If they have additional written comments on other aspects of the future of Canada Post, we'd love to hear from them. Perhaps they'd also be available for written questions from the committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

This is a standard request, gentlemen. If you were here for our first intervention, you will know that we made the same request of our previous witnesses.

I assume by your nods that we have some acquiescence that if we have further questions you will entertain them, and should you have any further submissions that you wish to bring to the attention of the committee, please direct them to our clerk. We'd love to hear from you.

Let me say again, on behalf of the committee, as I think each one of my colleagues has done before me, thank you so much for being here, and thank you for your candour and directness. This is very much appreciated. It is what we need.

We will suspend for a couple of moments and wait for our next witnesses to come to the table.

Thank you to all.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

We're running a little behind.

First, to all of the witnesses, do all of you have opening statements?

My intrepid clerk here is giving me some instructions. I will ask you to keep your comments as brief as possible. We now have less than 55 minutes for the opening statements and questions from all of our colleagues.

I will begin with....

Yes, Mr. Whalen.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Excuse me, Chair, I have a point of order.

Very quickly, in light of the committee travel over the next three House sitting weeks, we'd like to propose that notwithstanding any routine motion during the meetings of the committee outside of Ottawa, the chair shall not entertain any substantive motion. This is in line with other committee travel, because only seven of the ten members of the permanent committee are here.

I believe this should be accepted. I've spoken to—

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

I believe that is in order.

A show of hands, all those in favour?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you, Mr. Whalen.

Ms. Hutchison, your opening statement, please.

[Carmela Hutchison, President, DisAbled Women's Network Canada]

Thank you.

Dear members of Parliament, the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, I thank you for your gracious welcome and for the opportunity for women with disabilities to be consulted about the important role the postal service plays in their lives.

I would like to take a moment to acknowledge the Kahnawake Mohawk first nations peoples on whose traditional lands we gather today.

I would also like to take a moment to reflect on the one in five people with disabilities who will be affected by the decisions taken with respect to postal service and ask decision-makers to remember to reflect also on the fact that decisions taken here will affect the 3,775,910 Canadians, and in particular the 2,076,890 Canadian women, who are living with disabilities in this country.

Women with disabilities across Canada are very concerned about the intention of Canada Post to stop home mail delivery service, to install community mailboxes, to reduce home mail delivery, and how they allocate home mailboxes. Women with disabilities are at greater risk for violence because they are women and because they are disabled. Ending mail delivery service places at risk all Canadians with disabilities who rely on home delivery service as part of their personal safety plan.

The risks posed to women with disabilities come from two directions: one, because we're women; and the other, posed by our disability. Difficulty reaching the boxes, uneven or icy terrain, inability to hear someone coming if you are deaf or hard of hearing, and inability to read the box because of vision or disability all place us at risk because we're forced to travel a path to a box in the community. Such routines make a point of risk to us of further abuse.

Women who have more severe disabilities are, then, also placed at even greater risk if they're forced to allow others to collect their mail. One woman actually had a trustee. She couldn't get her own mail because of the severity of her disabilities, and that was the only reason she had a trustee. Resorting to caregivers or family members is, on the surface, what should be the logical solution and a problem seemingly minor. Someone will get it for you. It is anything but minor when you're a senior or a woman with a disability and you're being stolen from by your caregivers or financially abused as a senior. There is no expectation of privacy when other folks can get your mail.

One woman living in an area with a community mailbox had tenants who did not conduct themselves well. While she was away from home, her mail was tampered with for months. Economic challenges can create risky situations, as people try to improve their situations by sharing housing. The inability to have observation and control of the box, through residential delivery, again increases the risk to women with disabilities.

Women with disabilities are also at risk for stalkers or abusers. Women with mental illnesses such as agoraphobia, paranoia, or post-traumatic stress disorder may also find it impossible to get to the box. Women with episodic disabilities may also experience fatigue or additional pain. If they're injured, they may become continuously disabled. Women with hidden disabilities, such as depression, heart disease, or COPD may look well but be unable to manage the trek to the box each day.

Loss of postal delivery service removes an important link in the chain of safety. Postal workers who deliver the mail would notice when people were unusually absent or were injured, or they would see somebody had fallen. Fine public servants will no longer be on their routes to see these things.

The introduction of accommodation now becomes a huge problem for both women with disabilities and the postal service. Do we put a big handicapped sign on the door? Who approves it? The Canadian Medical Association wisely indicated it would not.

The payment for these types of reports can also become an economic barrier. The amount of paperwork, complexity of paperwork, and their frequency have caused some patients to lose their doctors, in an era where it's already very hard to find a doctor. Municipalities do not want the boxes on their boulevards, nor do they want the maintenance. One woman has been told that Canada Post would actually place the box by her home unless the neighbours complained.

It's unbelievable that Canada has ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, yet we can observe rights being trampled on in the following ways.

For example, the convention states, under “General Observations” in article 4, that:

1. States Parties...ensure and promote the full realization of all human rights and fundamental freedoms for all persons with disabilities without discrimination of any kind on the basis of disability. To this end, States Parties undertake:

d. To refrain from engaging in any act or practice that is inconsistent with the present Convention and to ensure that public authorities and institutions act in conformity with the present Convention;

In article 6, women and girls are at greater risk for poverty and violence.

In the body of the presentation, when you receive it, there will be other articles in there. We took some time in our presentation to think about the purpose of the crown corporation, and we want to emphasize that we don't think this crown corporation should be privatized.

We also talk about two pieces, one from Canada Post Corporation and one from CUPW. The one we thought was interesting from Canada Post Corporation was the encouraging of entrepreneurial consultation, which we thought might be helpful to women with disabilities, because it might be a solution that helps supplement income. The one from CUPW has to do with postal banking, which we think, in conjunction with social economies, might be helpful to women with disabilities.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

I appreciate your comments. This is when I hate being a chairman, but we're on a tight schedule, so I'm asking all of you to please be as brief as you possibly can. It has been our experience that even if you don't conclude your opening remarks, most of the information you have seems to come through in the questions and answers.

With that, we will go to Madam Pelletier.

[Ruth Pelletier, Former President, Seniors Action Quebec]

Thank you very much.

My name is Ruth Pelletier. I'm the past president of Seniors Action Quebec. We thank you for the opportunity to speak.

I'd like to turn it over to our executive committee member, who is our official secretary, Mr. Andrew DeFour.

[Andrew DeFour, Secretary, Seniors Action Quebec]

Thank you, honourable members, for inviting us, and for the opportunity to present before you on the topic of Canada Post.

Seniors Action Quebec is a non-profit provincial organization working in partnership on behalf of English-speaking Quebec seniors. There are one million English-speaking individuals living in Quebec. Of these, just a little under 300,000 are 55 years of age and over. They represent 25.4% of Quebec's minority language group.

The greatest concentration of seniors is located in the Montreal and the Montérégie region: a combined total of 196 seniors aged 55-plus. The English-speaking communities of the Estrie and Gaspésie–Îles-de-la-Madeleine region have the largest proportion of seniors, at 37% and 36.5% respectively, indicating that one in three English-speaking persons is in a rural community in Quebec.

Over the past 10 years, there have been many focus groups and conferences to find out the needs and priorities of seniors. Recently, we concluded a one-year Canadian Heritage project titled “Building Community Capacity—From Evidence to Action”. The goal was to identify and establish priorities among critical needs and issues affecting seniors' quality of life. We had five partner organizations covering the Outaouais, the total Gaspésie, the North Shore, Sept-Îles, Baie-Comeau, and Quebec City. The aim of the project was to consult with seniors in the regions, asking them to identify priorities for their communities. We successfully carried out 17 focus groups throughout Quebec.

During these focus groups, seniors expressed concerns regarding access to their mail delivery. Concerns that came out were: difficulty in accessing the community boxes; weather conditions limiting the ability to leave home; insufficient removal of snow and ice at the boxes; and inability due to illness, post-surgery recovery, or limited mobility, and cardiovascular or other respiratory conditions.

We request that the government not permit any new cuts to mail delivery, especially in the rural and remote regions of the country. Lack of transportation to the boxes, especially in small communities where boxes are located in the centre of town, requires the individuals to drive to pick up their mail. Without access to vehicles, they will rely on family and neighbours.

English-speaking seniors are more vulnerable, as their adult children have left their hometown or, in many cases, the province, leaving their parents to rely on friends as their support network.

In the case of seniors affected by the early onset of dementia or Alzheimer's disease, they may not be able to make a request for service at home. The implications are that their bills remain unpaid and important appointments are missed, etc.

What has the government done and what will it do to address these similar needs?

In the past when mail was delivered to your home, it provided a means of knowing the habits of an individual, as Canada Post employees and the recipient generally developed a good relationship. If something was abnormal, the Canada Post employee could flag the issue. Without this hands-on service, seniors have expressed the concern that there is a level of security missing.

We understand that the current government has halted the replacement of home delivery with communal boxes. We applaud this decision.

It is our understanding that the government has a mechanism for individuals who require mail delivery directly to their home due to illness or mobility issues. We feel that this is extremely helpful and encourage the government to implement the necessary publicity to ensure individuals are aware of the existence of this service and the process.

Hopefully, in regard to receiving this service, you have taken into account the fact that not all seniors have access to a computer or have poor Internet connections—some have dial-up—and therefore we hope the process to request this service is fast, simple, and user-friendly, with perhaps simply a phone call. We urge the government to ensure adequate resources to handle the demand for this service, with a recognition of the needs in our culturally diverse communities.

If these items are taken into account, it will go a long way to alleviate several of the concerns expressed by seniors and those who fall into these specific circumstances. We are encouraged by the government's process of consultation to address this issue.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Lavigne, please, for five minutes.

[Richard Lavigne, Director General, Confédération des organismes de personnes handicapées du Québec]

Good morning.

On behalf of the Confédération des organismes des personnes handicapées, I want to thank you for welcoming me here today. At the outset, I would like to express my support for the remarks by the two individuals who spoke before me. In the community of persons with limitations, there are of course many seniors and women. I will not repeat what they said because we are entirely in agreement.

I am going to speak to you about a special situation in Quebec. There is some talk about requiring a medical certificate for a person to obtain home delivery service. I do not know whether people are experiencing the same problem in the other provinces, but here in Quebec not everyone has a family physician, and if by chance we have one, it is often difficult to get an appointment, and patients have to pay for the certificate. These are obstacles for the people we represent. Need we remind you of that fact? The community of persons whom we represent does not distinguish itself by its great wealth, quite the contrary.

Furthermore, it appears that Canada Post would be the one to decide, based on the medical certificate submitted to it, whether the person in question is disabled enough to receive mail at home. We are quite surprised to learn that Canada Post has specialized resources to assess persons with disabilities, and, as you will understand, we doubt the value of the assessment that will be conducted. Technically speaking, if I have a physician, have managed to make an appointment, and obtained a medical certificate, Canada Post may still not accept that certificate. We consider this unacceptable.

How do people get to this community mailbox and how can they find their box? This is a major issue for the people we represent. We live in a country that has snow and ice in winter. How can people reach the location of their community mailbox through ice, snow, and inclement weather? When you have to use adapted transportation, it must absolutely be reserved well in advance. In some instances, one must also wait an hour or an hour and a half for the return trip, where adapted transportation service is available. These situations may occur in -30, -40 or -25 degree weather. What can persons with disabilities do to be independent and feel safe when they go to pick up their mail? If they have no assistance on site, how will they find their mailbox? How will blind people find the big mailbox and then their own individual mailbox if there is also a lot of snow or ice on the ground?

I also emphasize how important it is not to put persons with disabilities in situations where they are vulnerable or to make them too dependent on family and friends. We are increasingly urged to seek the assistance of close relatives, family, friends, and neighbours. At some point, it becomes very difficult to remain independent and to protect one's privacy. Mail is personal and we do not necessarily want a neighbour or family member to be aware of the mail we receive. Blind people, to expand on that example, have technological aids with which to read their mail but not to go and pick it up. They must constantly request assistance, and that runs counter to the principle of personal independence.

We are told that Canada Post has financial problems. We wonder why the main recommendation is to cut services. Canada Post could, and even should, find other services to fund itself. The postal organizations of other countries provide other services that contribute to their funding. Why would Canada Post not to the same? In the event Canada Post is unable to find new funding sources, should it not then consider other measures? Is it really essential to deliver the mail five or six times a week, or would it not be possible to plan other measures at locations that do not have the critical mass?

In short, we cannot accept a measure that would require persons living with functional limitations to obtain a medical certificate in order to have their mail delivered at home subject to an evaluation by Canada Post of the certificate thus obtained.

For these reasons, we think Canada Post should maintain its services, adapt them, and find other sources of funding.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you.

Mr. Ratnani, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Hicham Ratnani, Chief Operating Officer and Co-founder, Frank + Oak]

Thank you very much for the opportunity today.

I want to thank all the committee members.

I'll keep my statement brief and in two sections overall. What is Frank + Oak, and why are we here, and why do we care?

Frank + Oak is an innovative retail brand founded here in Canada about four years ago. We now employ over 250 people. We started entirely online; in other words, we ship a tremendous number of packages via Canada Post every single day.

We were ranked number one in Deloitte's Fast 50 as the fastest-growing company in Canada last year. We care very much about the future of this industry and how we can become a beacon of success in this overall industry. Our goal is to combine technology, design, and innovation to become, I would say, the future of retail. The reason we're here is that we are a very large client of Canada Post. We ship a very large number of packages in both the U.S. and Canada. We also leverage a lot of the innovations developed by Canada Post, such as address verification, which allows our customers to have the right addresses input in their statements, and also the Delivered Tonight service, which means that customers can buy today and it will be delivered in their mail the same day here in Montreal and other areas.

Our goal is to be a very large retailer and to disrupt retail in general. As we know, commerce is evolving very quickly and is becoming ever more competitive. When we look at situations where Canada Post might offer fewer options for their customers, less innovation, and also restrict the overall level of service, this is a great concern for a company that requires a strong local partner such as Canada Post.

We do want the carrier to be leading, to continue to innovate, and there is a lot of competition in this space. Locally, other private carriers are very fierce in their offers to gain our business. Our goal is to be an online disrupter and very large company. We require Canada Post to be at the forefront and to offer more services in this ever more competitive space, which is commerce.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

Colleagues, try to keep your comments as brief as possible so we can make our next destination and entertain our next set of witnesses in Blainville, Quebec.

Mr. Ayoub, you have the floor for seven minutes.

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the witnesses for being here today.

I am very pleased to meet you. It is important to hear what you have to say. My questions will concern persons with reduced mobility, persons with physical disabilities.

You noted certain problems. I would have liked you to expand on the safety aspect. What makes you feel unsafe—no pun intended—about losing home delivery?

We also talked about reducing weekly mail service to two or three days. Do you consider that an acceptable solution? How do you perceive that possibility?

I will ask my third question right away. I would like you two discuss in greater detail your experience with requesting personal service in specific cases. What process did you go through?

I would like a brief answer to each question because I want to hear from all of you.

[Richard Lavigne]

With respect to safety, persons with visual or motor disabilities who go to pick up their mail experience stress. They do not really know whether or how they will get there. Someone may follow them and try to see what they have received. They may have received mail that seems more attractive to ill-intentioned individuals. There is also the matter of transportation, as I explained earlier.

In response to your third question, we learned about this project like everyone else. In Quebec, however, we have not had any direct connection with Canada Post, but perhaps Canadian associations have. In fact, we have not had any official exchange with the Canada Post people.

What was your second question?