Thank you.
When the Liberals took over the challenge of our federal election campaign and promised the public they would stop the Conservatives and save Canada Post, we hoped that the failed Conservative strategy of cutting our public postal service would finally be cast aside. We were promised that all options would be on the table except for privatization.
The Canada Post review task force that was set up earlier this year to identify options for the future of Canada Post has now released its discussion paper. We were concerned that the makeup of this task force was composed of former CEOs and big-business people. That's a little like getting the fox to design the henhouse.
While we were disappointed, we're not really surprised to see that the discussion paper, instead of broadening Canada Post's horizon, continues to support and even expand the Conservative cuts to the postal service, including: reducing delivery frequency;;post office closures in rural and small towns by lifting the moratorium on such closures, converting more home delivery addresses to so-called community mailbox delivery; and, charging people for door-to-door delivery, like a postal tax.
The paper did touch on some ideas for service expansion but devoted much less time to them, skewing it heavily in the direction of cuts. Some ideas were: becoming an Internet service provider; providing scheduled monitoring services for the elderly and people with disabilities; offering green packaging and recycling; developing an electric vehicle charging network; using post offices as community hubs; providing a marijuana distribution service; and, providing postal banking on a very limited scale if the financial institutions are interested.
However, many of these more positive public-service-oriented possibilities were glossed over or dismissed. Some were not even discussed but placed in an appendix on the last page. Others that were raised, such as bringing back food mail to replace the failed nutrition north program, were not mentioned anywhere.
We don't need cuts to rural postal service, and we don't need to lose good jobs, especially since they are so scarce in our rural communities. We don't want to hear the Liberals say that privatization is out and then implement the self-privatization of the post office by allowing Canada Post to open more franchises and close more corporate retail stores.
The task force has evidently accepted Canada Post Corporation's claims and projections about its finances, including the solvency deficit in the pension fund. It even cites the discredited 2013 Conference Board report that falsely predicted massive losses and has been wrong every year. Once again, we have the CPC throwing out wild figures and projections without having to account for them. We cannot trust anything the corporation says about its finances at this stage.
The task force also asked the consulting firm Ernst & Young to independently review the CPC's finances; it's like dishing up dirt. Other experts consulted by the task force are not identified. Neither does this report disclose the methodology for conducting its polling, nor how it arrived at the cost savings it estimates.
Look at the section on postal banking as one example of the big business bias. There is no sign of a postal banking study, which the CPC conducted for four years. Instead, the paper claims that full-scale postal banking won't succeed in the Canadian context because we already have the best and most inclusive financial system there is. There is no mention of the fact that Canadians are paying some of the highest bank fees in the world. A public option is badly needed.
The task force does say that a partnership model with banks or credit unions could be considered. The paper also says there may be an opportunity for corporate post offices in select underserved remote communities in line with the task force hub option of offering services in select communities, provided financial institutions have an interest in this initiative. This may not be the postal bank we envisioned, but it's a start.
Let's remember that this is not yet a done deal, because we are now entering phase two, where we need the public to support our vision to create a better public postal service. We must remember that the task force's suggested cuts are not recommendations, only options. We must vigorously oppose any recommendations that undermine public postal services and good jobs.