We had hoped that the last postal review, the last mandate review, with the ombudsman would be.... We advocated for a regulator/ombudsman at the time. We went to the ombudsman, who said they can't deal with pricing and they can't deal with service. So what do they deal with? The ombudsman is an employee of Canada Post. For my members, I think the feeling would be that the ombudsman has been frankly useless.
We need a regulator who sets service standards and sets pricing and who is independent. I think that if you look around the world you will see that it is the trend and it's worked well. I think that if we look to the U.S. and the U.K. and other places, we see that the regulator works, because I think people feel they have a voice.
The challenge we have right now, particularly as small mailers—we are big mailers in small post offices but are actually small mailers—is that we don't feel we have a choice. We are told in July that this is what's going to happen to us in January and we're asked to comment on it. The comments go forward, but they never actually change. I think we need a regulator with teeth.