Government Operations Committee on Sept. 28th, 2016

[Michelle Gouthro Johnson]

It's not enough to offset, but the parcels more or less.... You spend $10 for a parcel to go to Toronto, or you could spend 85 cents for a letter to go to Toronto.

You know, a lot of this stuff that has been put out by The Conference Board of Canada, which was a report that was commissioned by Canada Post—and Deepak Chopra sits on the board of directors—is very self-serving.

I think Phil can probably add a few words about it.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

There's a lot of self-serving information being put out, I'll be honest with you. If you put three CUPW people up, they say everything's great. You put three other people up, they say everything's not great, so that's harassing with questions—

[Michelle Gouthro Johnson]

You can speak to our customers.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

—and we repeat the questions again and again.

Have you looked at the long term? You've seen the report the task force has put out that shows this widening gap in sustainability. In 2026, I think, they're predicting...I can't remember, but I think it's a $750-million shortfall. Do you accept that? Do you accept that as close, or....and Ernst & Young put out the numbers as well.

[Philip Lyons, President, Local 630, Canadian Union of Postal Workers]

I think part of the biggest problem we have with Canada Post is a lack of transparency. We simply can't trust the figures they put out. They never back them. I think they've used the figure of a $1-billion loss four times since the mid-nineties, that this will cost us $1 billion if we don't do something.

There has always been a lack of transparency with the union. There are 51,000 of us from coast to coast to coast. In larger terms, they don't listen to us, period. We're the ones out on the street, we're listening to the customers, and they don't want to hear it. We've suggested pilot projects to them a number of times.

In terms of the earlier question in terms of.... We're willing to try anything. Beggars can't be choosers.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Yes, it's a difficult situation for everyone then, taxpayers as well.

Do you think Canada Post is something that should be...? The price of stamps, in a way it's paid for by Canadians. It's simply another form of a tax. Whether it's higher taxes subsidizing Canada Post, increasing the price of stamps, etc. in the end it comes out of one pocket.

Do you think we've reached that point—if it is $750 million as Ernst & Young suggested, the report suggests, or $100 million—that this should be made up by a subsidy or an infusion from the taxpayers, or from cuts, or from stamp-price increases? It's a difficult question and you're seeing off 10 years, but a general quick opinion, because I want to give Mr. Lewenza a chance.

[Michelle Gouthro Johnson]

I believe postal banking is an answer. I know it was mentioned earlier that Italy Post is privatized. In Britain, Moya Greene, a former CEO of Canada Post, has also privatized Royal Mail, which delivers banking services. The banking services are public. Post offices around the world—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

We can privatize Canada Post and have a public bank.

I'm teasing you.

[Michelle Gouthro Johnson]

Not necessarily, but the postal banking.... As a retail person, I know we offer financial services already. We do money orders. We do money transfers. We do pin changes. We authorize bank accounts through online banks—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I'm going to Mr. Lewenza, I'm sorry.

Very quickly, and I brought it up earlier and you may have heard it before, we saw Unifor and GM go to new employees—they weren't grandfathered, I believe it's fair—to help sustain and to land the new job contract, go to a defined contribution plan.

If it gets to that, if it's one of the solutions to maintain jobs, is that something that could be considered? Or does that have to wait for two years to the next negotiation?

[Philip Lyons]

Again, with us I think it's a lack of transparency. We had defined benefit that worked for 40 to 50 years, now all of a sudden it doesn't work and we're not being told why it doesn't work. I think we're comparing apples to oranges with Unifor. You can't pick up Canada Post and move it to Mexico, and that's being held over Unifor's head at every negotiation.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

But you can pick up and fortunately go to community mailboxes, though, but I understand what you're saying.

I'm sorry, we have very little time. Can you maybe share one of your stories quickly?

[Ken Lewenza]

It's kind of unfortunate, but I'll give you an example when it comes to innovation—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Do that on someone else's time, but—

[Ken Lewenza]

No, the minivan plant, for example. We have the three-shift operation. Forever and ever we told the company when they were building minivans that we can three-shift an operation, and it was the company that said it's absolutely impossible because you have to do maintenance.

Workers got together with the company and for three years argued that they could actually do this. What happened was they actually were successful in convincing the company they could three-shift an operation. It started to become an industry standard and the reason that we're still producing minivans here in Windsor-Essex County is because of that level of innovation and productivity that's coming out of that workplace.

Going back into the 1960s, Green Shield Canada started up a benefits corporation. The workers there are innovating technologies. It's kind of set up as a co-operative non-profit. They just got a $1-billion contract from Toronto. We just hired another 100 people, paying $32 to answer a phone. Non-profit, the CEO's doing very well. The workers are doing well. The community's doing well, and essentially a lot of the people who are searching for benefits now are coming here to Windsor-Essex County to get this type of benefits plan. Today we're actually starting to work on a new co-operative model that brings a whole bunch of stakeholders together.

That's fine, so—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

We're out of time. Maybe somebody else can follow up. Thanks.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Our next seven-minute intervention will come from Ms. Hardcastle.

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Actually, that's a really great segue for me. I can just say to Mr. Lewenza, take it away.

I do have comments for the other guys. I'd like to hear from them.

[Ken Lewenza]

I'll make a couple of points, even on your labour dilemmas. I sat on the management side when I was a city councillor and I've sat on the union side being with the union. I can give you an example. For example, when you use numbers, they use the term “legacy costs”.

In our community we had a 100-day strike going back to 2007-08 over post-retirement benefits. When you actually look back on it, I can guarantee and show you a clear picture of how both sides were just insane. We were in this protracted battle. CUPE offered that they would have a revenue-neutral agreement for two years, and the city wanted the post-retirement benefits. CUPE said we wouldn't take any wage increases.

At the end of that 100-day strike, the city ended up giving a 7% wage increase. They took away the post-retirement benefits, but when you actually times the number of hours and what that wage increase was worth, you could purchase those post-retirement benefits two times over. It's insane for the taxpayer. It was just an insane fight that absolutely made no sense.

So when you look at these numbers, in terms of the skepticism that people here are seeing.... We'll see in the press this is what CUPW is saying and this is what the management team is saying. Here in Windsor-Essex, we can simply get people together and ask if we agree on these types of numbers, because we all know what the reality is. For example, in my workplace in the private sector, the business can't lose money if they're going to continue to have jobs.

In the public sector it's a little bit different, but I think there are opportunities there. I think that we're getting into these divisive fights when I think there are solutions to actually start working on what the challenges are of Canada Post moving forward and how we can respond.

The last part is about community democracy. I am absolutely confident that after this meeting today, we'll get together with those community stakeholders and we'll try to put forward something that makes sense that we all kind of agree on or some things that need to be explored further.

I'm worried that this report will go back rushed under these narrow confines that all of you are kind of pressured into, and say that this is your analysis, when this should be an ongoing process that continues into the future.

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Thank you.

I'd like to ask either Mr. Lyons or Ms. Johnson, or between the two of you.... I'm sure the committee has more insight with some of the members, but I know Canada Post in the future.... Canada Post, as we all know, is something that Canadians can really get engaged in. There are a lot of Canadians who are very knowledgeable in business. A lot of Canadians are very astute about the vastness of the country and how we have had to socialize what we call social infrastructure. Even railways in the past, building a nation....

I know there are two visions, obviously, that come forward now, like take the most profitable part, which seems to be the parcel delivery, lop it off and privatize it. The other one is a really innovative, really intriguing vision that CUPW has.

You mentioned it a little bit earlier, Ms. Johnson, with regard to nutrition north, the potential daily delivery. I'd like to hear you guys talk a little bit more about the real vision for the existing infrastructure and how to leverage it.

[Michelle Gouthro Johnson]

Canada Post has 6,300 retail post offices across the country, whether they be urban or rural, and we're everywhere in the country. The national union has teamed up with the Leap Manifesto about building community power and having the post offices as a hub.

The businessman earlier from Petrolia spoke about his post office once being a community hub. We've talked about expanding, not only into postal banking, but into grocery delivery to the north by teaming up with nutrition north. We know that the north is subsidized through other programs, but who better to deliver that than the post office that is in every community?

That's why we think of postal banking to indigenous communities and into the far north communities.

Cottam, Ontario, which is a small town probably 35 kilometres outside of Windsor, just lost its only bank. Here's a community in southwestern Ontario without a bank.

We also talked about greening our fleet. We have the largest fleet, the largest logistics fleet in the country. Much of it has been converted to electric or hybrid vehicles. We talked about having charging stations for other vehicles around the country, not just postal vehicles, and maintaining an elder watch postal hub as a public postal service available to all Canadians.

[Philip Lyons]

I think the sky is the limit with what we can deliver, and I'd like to thank the committee for going around the country and asking Canadians do you think we can get into grocery delivery, almost delivery right off of farms? And I really don't think there's anything we can't get into, and we need to ask Canadians. We need to say this is your service, it hasn't cost you a dime—popular belief is it has but it hasn't—so what do you want from this service?

Hopefully that comes out of this committee.

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

On that really positive note, on behalf of CUPW you've read and looked into a variety of information, and you've seen where the profits are and where the potential is. You haven't just seen financial crisis, and maybe I'll give you this last opportunity to dispel a myth or talk about how you've worked on pensions with the company. I know there are a few of those factors that are very important in mitigating the whole issue.

[Philip Lyons]

Obviously we're at odds over the pension and how they're calculating the solvency. We have a lot of financial experts who have said the solvency shouldn't even be part of Canada Post's calculation, that there are municipalities, there are universities, that aren't subject to it. We're an ongoing business, not looking to wrap up business. In 2015 we had a $1.2 billion surplus in the ongoing concern. We don't feel that we should even be subject to that calculation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Ratansi, seven minutes, please.