Evidence of meeting #31 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 post.
NDP
Erin Weir NDP Regina—Lewvan, SK
I think that's a really good analogy to student loans.
One of the reasons that type of financial service is so viable from the federal government is that the government has a lot of power to collect the money through the Canada Revenue Agency. Might that not be a further advantage to postal banking and to offering payday loans through the post office, as you wouldn't have nearly as much risk of people not repaying?
Councillor, City of Hamilton
The answer to that is, absolutely.
There is a moral responsibility to do so, because to not do so exposes people to what I call the economic violence of this predatory industry.
Conservative
Liberal
Ramez Ayoub Liberal Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses for being here today. I'd like to return the compliment to Ms. Lunau for her public service. Having been a municipal councillor and mayor, I know what it is to work closely with the people you represent.
I'd also like to thank the organizations. You are making a significant contribution to the social fabric and strength of your communities by being here and sharing your concerns about public services such as Canada Post.
That said, our tour has exposed a failure to hold consultations and the fact that, as a result, information wasn't provided to the public or the municipalities concerned. The consequences of those decisions are apparent: poor facilities, unhappy residents, and deteriorating service.
I'm rather shocked to learn that a municipality intends to sue Canada Post.
Is it for financial reasons?
You may have read the report on that subject. It said that Canada Post would face a $700-million deficit over the next decade if nothing changed. That's a lot of money.
Mr. Green talked about postal banking, which would move Canada Post away from its core business. It was also suggested by some that the crown corporation become a provider of Internet or telecom services. I'm always doubtful about improving a functional service that has some positive elements. If you'd been here earlier, you would have heard us discussing the business side, parcel delivery, which is doing well.
I'd like to hear you comment on your openness to change. We haven't talked much about that so far.
As far as services are concerned, how open are you to change, given that the status quo is no longer a viable option for Canada Post?
We talked about delivery days. The report even mentioned charging a fee for home delivery. The cost of stamps has already gone up.
How is your community reacting?
Have petitions been circulated? Have people come to see you?
What has people's reaction to the change been?
Councillor, City of Hamilton
Thank you very much.
Through you, Mr. Chair, certainly a municipality that undertakes to enter into a lawsuit against Canada Post has done so under significant pressure from its residents. The manner in which they entered into our municipality with little to no consultation demonstrated an unwillingness to work with our community. And so, for the seniors, for all the reasons that you've heard here today, people with disabilities, for the issues it was causing, with community boxes being in rights-of-way, creating blind spots, to road cuts, to the nature in which they entered our municipality, it created a tremendous amount of pressure. I felt there was a rush before the election or whatever the politics were to execute this mandate and then pull back to another way.
But, certainly, as Canadians, I think we're not only open to change but it would be embraced if there was a compelling business case for it, the idea of having an institution that has been profitable, an institution or corporation that does have in its charter, as I understand, the ability for postal banking.
As a corporation, the fiduciary responsibility is to the shareholders, which is the government which, by extension, is us, to use all avenues within the charter of this crown corporation to be sustainable. Yes, it's mission creep, but it's in the charter. It's in there for a reason, I would suggest, based on the international examples of 50-plus...70% per cent in New Zealand. So there are business cases for this across the world where, not only is it sustainable, but it creates a tremendous amount of value for the corporation.
Councillor, Town of Milton
Thank you.
I, too, would predict that some kind of banking through Canada Post would be widely accepted. If you're looking for a way to streamline, I would suggest that every-other-day delivery would be very acceptable for most people, because there's less and less critical mail that comes every day. So much of it is in fact done online. As long as those dates were set, you knew it was Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, I believe you would find that very acceptable.
As far as the cost of postage itself goes, the people who are most dependent upon the stamps and postage are the ones who can least afford any price increases because these are the people who perhaps don't have the sophisticated banking services, the sophisticated payment services. They may not have a computer. They may not have the Internet for Internet banking and such. These are people who want to send the birthday cards, who want to send the payments by cheque. I would suggest that raising the cost of the stamp would be a very real hardship for many people; raising the cost of parcel services perhaps not so much. But that day-to-day, front-line accessibility, I would say, is very critical.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Thank you.
We'll go now to a five-minute round, and we'll start with Mr. Brassard.
Conservative
John Brassard Conservative Barrie—Innisfil, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to apologize off the bat to the other three witnesses because I'm going to focus on Mr. Green and some of his comments today. I'm going to try not to make this a long preamble because I want to hear what you have to say about this.
I just started with the committee today. I have met with CUPW in the past, and some of the messaging that I'm hearing, even today from other witnesses, and what I'm hearing from CUPW, seem to contradict what you're saying. In particular, it's the fact that if Canada Post were to move into the area of banking, it would be more acceptable or more common practice in rural areas that are not currently serviced by banking institutions than it would be in urban areas.
You're talking about Canada Post being able to facilitate banking needs within those urban areas. I'll give you some examples. In first nations communities, of the 615 first nations communities in 2014, only 54 had bank or credit unions. There have been 2,000 communities that have, since 1982, lost their financial service institutions, so this seems to be a trend more so in rural areas than in urban.
I think what concerns me about what you're suggesting, with respect, is that it seems to me you're looking to Canada Post to potentially subsidize what already exists within urban centres as it relates to the options of banking institutions. I want you to clarify this so that I have a better understanding and the committee has a better understanding. People in urban settings, unlike rural or first nations communities, have those options for those banking institutions, which, I'll remind you, are highly regulated industries within this country. Please clarify that for me.
Councillor, City of Hamilton
Thank you.
Through you, Mr. Chair, to the member, I'd like to clarify that I'm not here on behalf of CUPW. I'm here on behalf of the good people of ward 3—
Councillor, City of Hamilton
—and I'm speaking specifically to the challenges that I'm seeing in the inner city. I'm not sure where the member has received his information from, but I'll speak specifically to Hamilton.
If we look back over the past 20 years, in 1995 we see there were no payday loan outlets in Hamilton, and 38 bank branches. There are now only 13 bank branches in all of lower Hamilton, and we have a disproportionate number of these payday loan companies, so much so that I answered to a motion at council that would seek to license them. For you to even begin to understand how many there are, some intersections have three or four payday loan companies. There's a distinction of what banking is. You have your traditional banks, which have left and typically gone to the strip malls in some of your suburbs, and then you have payday loan companies that are servicing our under-serviced communities.
It's still a very profitable business, make no mistake about it, and I'm not asking for charity here. I'm suggesting that there's a reason that the payday loan industry is ubiquitous across urban centres. The business case for them to be in rural centres is still present, and I still support that. I would suggest that what's missing in the reports, or perhaps maybe why I'm here today, is to present to you a compelling reason for why inner cities are seeing major mainstream bank flight. Accessibility of banking leaves people in a situation where they're overpaying for being under-serviced.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
You have about one minute for both the question and the answer, Mr. Brassard.
Conservative
John Brassard Conservative Barrie—Innisfil, ON
Okay.
We know statistically right now that the debt-to-income ratio in this country is about $1.65. Is it your opinion that perhaps some of these predatory lenders are there because of that reason and not necessarily at the fault of the banks?
Councillor, City of Hamilton
Based on the Payday Loans Act, federally, where usury laws are 60%, they're allowed to come into inner cities and provide annualized interest at 546%. It's a profitable business, and that's why they're there.
Conservative
John Brassard Conservative Barrie—Innisfil, ON
I want to thank you for your testimony today. It was interesting to hear some of the things that you had to say, as well as the other witnesses. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Thank you, Mr. Brassard.
Our final intervenor will be Madam Ratansi, five minutes, please.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
Thank you all for being here. I'd like to clarify that our platform was to stop the non-consultative way in which Mr. Harper's government went through Canada Post and instituted the stoppage of home delivery. We want to listen to Canadians, and this is our way of listening. There are multipronged processes. We told Canada Post to stop what it was doing. We know it was arrogant in the way it approached things. Some of the municipalities did not have any consultation, and some of the municipalities like Hamilton are challenging that.
We've heard from businesses, we've heard from the non-for-profit sectors, and we have heard from civil society organizations. The bottom line is that we're trying to manage the environment and manage Canada Post as a business to be sustainable as a crown corporation. None of you want tax increases, correct? If it's not sustainable, then what do we do? How do we do it?
The labour unions will challenge us, and they have said that the financial figures put forth by Canada Post are not telling the right picture. It's our job to go and review them. Our job is to listen to you, and then whatever suggestions you make, we challenge those suggestions as well, because that's part of our job.
We have listened to Canada Post as a business and Canada Post as a service. It provides services to all the groups of people. You are satisfied with the services, that's what we found.
One thing that I'd like to ask Mr. Green is, when you challenge Canada Post, or you took it to court, did you have to maintain or clean up the community mailboxes?
Councillor, City of Hamilton
Yes, absolutely. They've caused a tremendous amount of problems in a haphazard way in which they were...I'm on the planning committee, and typically there's a process for when utilities such as this are put in place, and they weren't considered. They left us vulnerable to obstruction of rights-of-ways, blind spots. It wasn't—
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
Okay.
Now my question is, if Canada Post comes back and says to you that they'd like to consult with you, would you agree to consult with them and with the current management that has given you such a bad taste in your mouth? Would you agree to sit down and consult with them?
Councillor, City of Hamilton
I would suggest that I support door-to-door delivery, first and foremost. If the consultation is about how to eliminate that, and the federal government comes down to municipalities as a child of the province and says we're doing this anyway, then at the very least, under duress and under support of door-to-door service, we say absolutely that they should be adhering to the planning principles of local municipalities.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
The thing is, we are not here to say to you that we are going to stop door-to-door delivery. There are options that are put forth by Canada Post and by the task force, to say, “we're looking at the financial side of it, but we'll also look at the social side of it”. If they say, “okay to the houses, we'll deliver it on alternative days, etc., and to business on a daily basis”, would that type of consultation...? I'm just throwing out some things. Would that appeal to you? Would you like it to survive?