Government Operations Committee on Sept. 27th, 2016

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Common sense evades us sometimes. Thanks.

Mr. Faruzel, and Ann as well, thanks for coming.

Obviously there are difficulties. We've been discussing access issues to the mailboxes. It doesn't work for everyone. Mr. Whalen mentioned Canada Post has a system where they will deliver to the box four days a week, then the fifth day they'll pick it up and deliver it to the home.

Is that adequate? Would twice a week be better or out of the question? Is that enough to address most of your issues, if not all?

[Edward Faruzel]

Yes, that would definitely be helpful. Probably twice a week would be better. But once a week for a lot of people would definitely be great.

I'm happy to hear about that. It should be something that Canada Post would promote more.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

You're dead-on right there. We in government, all of us, need to do better job putting that out.

Is it the same for you, Ms. Bilodeau? Do you believe the same? Share your thoughts please.

[Ann Bilodeau]

Actually, it's the same. The only thing to be cognizant of is if you were someone...in your home, and you're only getting it every other week—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

But they do it once a week.

[Ann Bilodeau]

—or even once a week. It's the due date on bills, because for many people there's a time frame. That would be the only thing that jumped at me. For many of the people we support, they are supported so that once a week is fine and certainly wouldn't be a problem. I see that as something that is certainly doable.

We are aware of the delivery...medical is one of them. I saw it on here, too. When marijuana gets legalized that's another area that's being looked at.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

The task force stated from the very beginning, in their first comment, that that's not what we were intending.

[Ann Bilodeau]

I know, but you do the medical now, so that is something you've already done.

Thanks for the comment.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Ms. Faruzel, the billers like to do twice a week. Is it date-wise with the bills, or is it just that it would better two days a week? Do you have the same kind of concern from your perspective?

[Edward Faruzel]

Yes, definitely. The other thing is that if the person is not home, do they just leave it on the porch?

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I don't know. You're right, because a lot of the new houses don't even have a mailbox.

[Edward Faruzel]

Exactly.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I don't know. You went and stumped the host today. Your parting gifts are at the back.

We'll have to find out. I'll send Canada Post a note. Thank you very much.

Mr. Green, thank you for your well-spoken words and your passion. I don't share the same belief that postal banking is the panacea for all of Canada Post's issues, but you've given us a lot to think about.

I don't expect you to have the answer, because it's just the start of a lot of chat about postal banking, but—as Andrew Coyne or someone commented—can you imagine the first time Canada Post comes and repossesses someone's car, or refuses to cash a cheque?

It's a big thing. There have been studies on it, and maybe the committee will decide we have to do some more studies on it.

I want to say that I appreciate your passion and your comments on that.

[Matthew Green]

Thank you so much.

I reject the premise of taking something away and then offering back to communities an incremental improvement on a service as being the answer to the problem. I support door-to-door delivery. Hamilton has the distinction of being the first municipality to enter into a lawsuit against Canada Post for the way they came into our city and into our older neighbourhoods, obstructed rights-of-way, avoided planning processes, and basically used their federal protection to run roughshod over the municipality. I would respectfully decline to say that obliterating the service, and then coming back and saying, “If we give it to you once or twice”, is where we need to be for a solution when door-to-door, given the profitability in previous years, is still a viable alternative.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you.

Mr. Weir, for seven minutes, please.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Just to pick up on that last point, I think all of the panellists have spoken of the importance of home mail delivery. It's a bit strange that we're even having this conversation, given that we have a federal government that was elected promising to restore door-to-door delivery.

There's been some confusion on this committee about what the Liberal Party proposed in the last election. I've pulled up the Liberal platform on my iPad here, and the section on Canada Post begins in bold letters saying, “We will save home mail delivery. We will stop Stephen Harper's plan to end door-to-door mail delivery in Canada.”

I think it's clear to almost everyone what the government was elected proposing, and I wonder if anyone on the panel would like to speak to the expectations we should have of the federal government going forward.

[Matthew Green]

Sure. I fully agree.

The consultative process is an important one. It does allow for this opportunity to reimagine what Canada Post would look like and to offer an end of disrupters or the innovative opportunities that have been presented already to you today.

I would concur that this is their mandate, and that this is what they ran on as their platform. They have a responsibility to do what they said they would do, which is restore door-to-door service.

I should also note, for the record, that I'm a non-partisan. I do not carry a card for any party.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Thank you very much.

[A voice]

I may want to sell you one after this.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

We would resist that.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Just to pick up on the topic of postal banking, Mr. Green, you mentioned that the task force had rejected the idea out of hand. I was also disappointed in that aspect of the report.

One of the task force concerns is that there might not be much of a market for postal banking. I wonder if you could speak a bit about the people in your ward. If they had the opportunity for basic financial services and things like cheque cashing at the post office, would they use it?

[Matthew Green]

Thank you very much.

Through you, Mr. Chair, to the member, I came out swinging on the banking industry and the predatory loan industry as I've seen it. When you get the call that a family has to make the decision about buying food or paying rent because at the end of the month they are caught in multiple payday loan instruments, you know something is wrong. In this space, we heard about what was conscionable. In terms of having a public service—we're all public servants—I think Canada Post has the opportunity to provide...particularly to our under-serviced and under-banked people.

It is very difficult for somebody who is on a fixed income or in a precarious situation—ODSP, Ontario Works—to make ends meet at the end of the month. There is an opportunity here to provide those instruments along with—we talked about community hubs—wraparound services that provide supports for people on debt counselling, connecting them to the opportunities that have been discussed today.

As it sounds, there are many ancillary services that Canada Post offers but doesn't.... If we have advocates here from abilities groups who don't know that they have direct door mail, that's a serious problem. Here's an opportunity to reinvent how we deliver this service in an innovative way, and to particularly address the precariousness of our banking institutions as they are today.

Keep in mind—I used the word “cartel”, and I did that very specifically—that it's a closed system. It's not a free market. The statement was made by the task force that it's working for Canadians. I would ask for whom. Even the “middle class” people—and not the $200,000 a year middle-class people, I mean the real middle-class people—have to pay exorbitant rates to access their own money through ATM fees, going in to see a teller—fees on top of fees. It's disgusting.

Here's an opportunity for Canada Post to do the right thing and enter into this space in a very meaningful way to give relief to Canadians across the country.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Your sense is that there are people who live in your wards, small business owners, who would welcome that service from Canada Post and would actually use it if it were available.

[Matthew Green]

Absolutely.

One of the positions that was stated was what if we have to repo stuff?

All you have to do is look at student loans to see where government sticks it to my generation, the so-called millennials. The government is already in that business, respectfully. They're making big amounts of money off education right now, and they're doing it with the student loan system. With this particular opportunity, it should be noted that not only are banks leaving our communities, they will take our credit cards, our mortgages.

Hamilton has one of the hottest real estate markets, particularly in my ward, with beautiful Victorian homes and lots of people coming from Toronto and elsewhere. They'll take our mortgages, but they will not provide commercial opportunities to small businesses in our community.

Our neighbourhoods are blacklisted in the inner city. You can't even get a mortgage for a commercial building in my ward. I know because I tried, and I had to go to a B lender. There are lots of different ways.

I'm not saying you have to get into commercial loans, because we have BDC. I'm not saying that has to be the space. However, if we're talking about a business model, about free market, about disrupters, then let's have the full conversation. Let's look at all of the opportunities.