Thank you.
First of all, we'd like to thank the task force for a wonderful report. We think it helped to establish a strong fact base from which informed decisions can be made about the future of Canada Post.
First, NAMMU supports the continued rollout of community mailboxes. We find it an effective way to deliver mail, and we found no evidence that it in any way diminishes the channel or makes it less competitive. We believe that Canada Post has to be more sensitive to the needs of Canadians and to communities that have special problems with mailboxes. Generally speaking, we support the continued move forward of the community mailbox program as an important cost control item.
We applaud the report's suggestion that the rural moratorium be updated. The removal of areas such as Brampton or Richmond Hill from the rural moratorium makes a whole lot of sense. Times have changed.
We also support moving more corporate retail to franchises.
We'd like to chat a bit about the rural post offices in general. I just had the opportunity to travel in my home province, Newfoundland and Labrador, and was in communities such as Bell Island, Trinity, and Woody Point. I saw all the local post offices there, with the Canadian flag and the community name, and it was a wonderful thing to see. We don't believe that mailers should be the sole provider or the sole payer to provide those locations and those community services at that level. There should be, as in other programs that Canada Post does—such as parliamentary mail—a subsidy to Canada Post to pay for those. That's one of our strong recommendations.
NAMMU, the National Association of Major Mail Users, doesn't support alternate day delivery, as we believe that will damage the competitiveness of the channel and make us more vulnerable to competitive inroads from digital.
One of the exceptions that we took to the report was the reference to advertising mail as “junk mail”. We think that's an unfortunate term, as was the suggestion that it isn't green or environmentally friendly. Canadians value their advertising mail and use it. If not, businesses wouldn't be using it. The mail-and-paper industry in Canada has a great green record in terms of maintaining forests, and the growth of forests has continued.
We support the realignment of Canada Post to remain commercially self-sufficient. We also support the establishment of a regulator. We would require and recommend the establishment of consultative and oversight committees to work in areas such as partnering, competitive products, go-to-market strategy, and pricing.
Last, on labour disruption uncertainty, we've just been through a terrible summer in which people lost jobs and were laid off because of the uncertainty in the industry. We encourage government to work with the parties. We have two years to come to a resolution so that we don't face this problem in two years.
Thank you very much.