Evidence of meeting #29 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 services.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
If there is not enough money to offer all of that, do the services have to be subsidized? Are we going to increase prices?
President, Association de l’Âge d’Or de Bois-des-Filion
As I said earlier, in the past, Canada Post was a department, the Post Office Department. It was close to the government, because it has always provided an essential service for the population, just like health services, road maintenance, and so on. It is an essential service.
Would there be a cost to guaranteeing home mail delivery to seniors? As you said, this is subsidized. If there is a cost, it would have to be subsidized. Seniors who like myself do not have special needs would not be entitled to home mail delivery.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Thank you.
We have two more intervenors who have five minutes each.
Monsieur Gourde.
Conservative
Jacques Gourde Conservative Lévis—Lotbinière, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I thank all of the witnesses for their openness and for sharing their members' experience. I think this is really interesting.
Mr. Flanagan, I took good note of your idea of providing services for persons of 80 or more. Choosing a certain set age would probably be less complicated than asking those who are 80 or more and who can still get around to go and obtain the certificate. We know that people who are in good shape want to walk. Making things more automatic for those who have mobility problems is an avenue that Canada Post should explore.
Snow removal is also an issue in winter, and finding a mechanism or investing a bit more money into that and seeing to it that snow is removed would help a lot of people. Even when you are 50, walking on ice is not safe. In this regard, Mr. Boisclair, you are entirely correct.
All things considered, your testimony indicates that things are not going too badly. As for twice-a-week mail delivery, I think that the current situation is tolerable. There are fewer letters today, and we don't necessarily expect bills every day. Whether we receive them on Tuesday and Thursday or Monday and Wednesday will not change much in people's lives. In any case, given the digital age we are in, 70% to 80% of messages arrive by electronic mail.
Is there anything else you would like to say to Canada Post? Do you want to suggest that they be careful with any given sector? Have you covered all of the issues?
President, Association de l’Âge d’Or de Bois-des-Filion
We have virtually covered the waterfront.
General Manager, FADOQ-Région Laurentides
In the document, I believe I read that the organization is trying to avoid osmosis among the sectors so that a sector that is losing money is not subsidized by another that is making money. Did I understand the document correctly in that regard? I note that the letter-post service is losing ground, while the parcel delivery service is on the increase. The parcel delivery service, which generates more profit, can subsidize mail delivery. Is that a possibility?
Conservative
Jacques Gourde Conservative Lévis—Lotbinière, QC
You would need to ask Canada Post whether in its overall study of sectors, some were found to generate more profit than others. In the final analysis, if the corporation goes bankrupt, the sectors...
General Manager, FADOQ-Région Laurentides
Clearly, comparisons were made. It's an accounting matter.
I believe that insofar as our members are concerned, and the document mentions this, Canadians in general think that the services Canada Post provide are good. Clearly, home mail delivery should not be eliminated for the clientele that needs it. I think that people can survive with once-or-twice-weekly mail delivery. Pension cheques are no longer delivered by mail but rather by direct deposit. The Admail service loses a bit of money, but it seems to be becoming a flagship product, much to the dismay of many seniors who feel this is junk that just goes into the garbage. Perhaps we will be become more ecologically responsible by emptying our mailbox twice a week rather than five times a week.
I think it is a good thing that the urban dynamic is very different from the rural dynamic. The document explains this well. Obviously, it is not a good idea to install superboxes on very busy streets, and Canada Post seems to have understood that well.
We could see to it that post offices deliver Service Canada services. There are three Service Canada offices in our area, in Mont-Laurier, Sainte-Adèle and Saint-Jérôme. I don't know if there's one in the Lower Laurentians. In fact, the population of various communities could go to the post office to obtain various documents provided by Service Canada.
As to the possibility of turning post offices into businesses, the available space precludes that. Already there is not much space left over for marketing, given the little banks and the stamps. I doubt that that could be a profitable avenue.
To conclude, I think that Canada Post, which has reached the digital age, could carve out a good place for itself with a digital cloud per post office. Without competing with current telephony, it could offer WiFi service. There is a market to be explored there, especially in rural areas.
Thank you very much.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
The final intervenor will be Ms. Ratansi, for five minutes, please.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
Thank you.
Thank you all for being here.
I have a question, and any of you can answer. Canada Post was created to connect Canadians from coast to coast to coast, and it has been a national symbol. Would any of your communities be able to accept a Canada without Canada Post?
Yes or no?
General Manager, FADOQ-Région Laurentides
Generally speaking, the answer is no.
Liberal
President, Association de l’Âge d’Or de Bois-des-Filion
Absolutely not.
As I said earlier, this is an essential service. Privatizing an essential service means that people are going to make money with an essential service that belongs to Canadians. I don't think that is acceptable.
President, Club Lorr « Aînés »
I think that Canada Post has to remain a corporation as it is currently, but it has to be able to evolve its practices in order to survive and adapt to society.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
Thank you.
The next question is, do any of you have any corporate offices in your region where people go to those offices, because Canada Post was planning to franchise those offices? When we were talking about external or expanding the services, you talked about banking not being very feasible, but you could go to the cloud. But then we heard only 32% of the population, the aging population, has access to it.
Number one, have you got a corporate office in your region, in your area?
No.
So you haven't been to that, and you wouldn't be able to access any services. In the rural areas, that's what they are trying to see. In the urban centres, we don't need it because we have banks that are accessible and we have services that are accessible.
Has anybody done a MoneyGram transfer via Canada Post?
No. Okay.
I'm trying to figure out what would be the most feasible service that Canada Post can provide, because the picture that has been painted for us, for the task force, and for Canada Post, is a bleak picture and we want it to survive.
You said if it streamlines itself or creates more service.... What sorts of services do you think it should provide?
President, Club Lorr « Aînés »
We answered that question earlier.
In remote areas, there may be enough space. Perhaps we could bring back the Internet café? I don't know. That type of business may be dead and buried.
As for digital services, seniors are a bit tired. Sunday afternoon, they have the grandchildren pushing them in the back and sometimes they push a bit too hard. The Facebook account is created by the granddaughter on Sunday afternoon and is not used on Monday evening by the grandmother or the grandfather. They don't necessarily know how to use it. The technology that is now available is already sufficient for most of them. Most elderly people do not have a cell phone. When they purchase a phone, they ask for the least complicated one.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
Do you have any other input, because you need to help us, to say how we--
President, Association de l’Âge d’Or de Bois-des-Filion
I would like to add something to what Mr. Boisclair was saying.
Whenever my members acquire a membership card, I ask them some questions to know who I am dealing with. I ask them whether they have an email address, for instance. Out of 430 members, 160 have an email address. The others do not have Internet services. When you talk about the digital environment, seniors are not very interested in that.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
We'll have to cut it off there.
Gentlemen, thank you so much for appearing before us and, more important, thank you for all you do on behalf of your organizations and your clientele. It's very much appreciated.
Colleagues, we are adjourned for the day.
Meeting adjourned.