Evidence of meeting #33 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 mail.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
I call the meeting to order.
Colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, welcome. Thank you for being here today.
It's my first time in Dryden, Ontario, and I think it's probably the first time for many of my colleagues—
12:55 p.m.
Mary Aitken President, Dryden Local, Canadian Union of Postal Workers, As an Individual
Why?
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Ms. Aitken, there's no good reason for that. We'll have to make a point of coming back.
Obviously you know the purpose of your appearance here. As I'm sure you're also undoubtedly aware, the Honourable Judy Foote, the minister responsible for Canada Post, has engaged in a very extensive and exhaustive consultation process concerning the future of Canada Post. The first part of that consultation process was for the minister to establish a four-person task force whose mandate was to examine the financial viability and sustainability of Canada Post. They did that, and they submitted their report to our committee. We examined it and we had that task force before us in a format very similar to this.
The second part of the consultation process is why we're here. The minister asked this committee to go across Canada to talk to individuals, organizations, and municipalities that have an interest in Canada Post and are affected and impacted by Canada Post and its future. We want to hear your opinions on what you think should be the future of Canada Post.
The process is pretty simple. We'll ask each one of you to make a short opening statement, hopefully no more than five-minutes. Once that is concluded, we will go into a round of questions during which all my colleagues around the table will have an opportunity to question you about your brief.
I suggest to you that if you have comments you think will exceed five minutes, try to pare them down. It's been our experience that most of the comments you would probably like to make in an opening statement get covered during the question-and-answer period anyway. There will be ample opportunity for all of you to expand upon your thoughts when that occurs.
With that brief introduction, we'll get going right away.
The first panellist I have on my list to make an opening statement is Mr. Andrew Scribilo, president of the Kenora and District Chamber of Commerce.
Andrew—if I call you that, after we've had an introduction—please commence. You have five minutes.
1:55 p.m.
Andrew Scribilo President, Kenora & District Chamber of Commerce
The brief I handed in contains the answers that our business community in Kenora gave to the questions.
As president of the chamber of commerce of Kenora, I also sit on NOACC, the northern Ontario chamber of commerce. We're very active in the whole northwest, not just in this region.
Our feelings and thoughts on Canada Post are that we would like it to stay. There may be alternative methods and modes, as we put it in answering our questions in here, that may satisfy the federal government.
For us in Kenora, we have home delivery, which seems to work very well. We also have rural post boxes as well as remote stations. For example, Keewatin is a post office, post office box, and rural delivery—two boxes—out in the country.
As far as Canada Post goes, in Kenora there's an outlet store at Shoppers Drug Mart. For us, I don't think it's used as heavily as the regular post office, open to Monday to Friday. They provide exceptional service, and you'll see that in the questions we've answered. We're very happy. At the chamber we use the postal service a lot. The company I work for uses the postal service exclusively with Canada Post, with Priority courier and Priority post.
In our particular urban area, Kenora, they have home delivery. That's just within distance of our main station post office. It seems to work very well. They have contractors delivering to the post office boxes external to urban—the non-urban, the rural country, which is a lot of what takes place in our communities. I will say that it works very well.
I've read some of the documents here. They're looking to see how they can cut costs and they are looking at the revenues. We can get into that. We can talk about the alternate-day service or whatever they're looking at. It employs a lot of people in our community. A lot of these communities were devastated when we lost a lot of the paper mills and a lot of the rail. Our communities have really gone downhill. To lose more employees, this time at Canada Post, would just be another nail in the coffin, basically. We intertwine with all the local people and all the local businesses.
That's the feeling from our area on Canada Post. We're happy with the service. We're also happy to see what alternatives are out there to help transform it into something we still want it to be.
Thank you.
2 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Thank you very much.
Next we have Mr. Neegan, for five minutes, please.
2 p.m.
David Neegan Owner, Norwest Printing and Publishing Group
I have to let you know that Canada Post has cost me a lot of sleep over the past summer. The reason for that is that my business, Norwest Printing and Publishing Group, relies heavily on Canada Post. When there was talk of a strike and the dates kept being extended, that forced my business to find other means of getting our invoices and our product to our customers. We receive the majority of our revenue through Canada Post in terms of our invoices and cheques and so forth being mailed. We rely heavily on Canada Post because that's one of the only methods we have in Dryden to accurately service our customers.
I don't want to say we're indifferent. What I'm here to say, basically, is that if the union and the corporation cannot resolve their issues within the next year or so, we will find means other than Canada Post. We employ 40 full-time and part-time employees right now, and since we are a new business—we just celebrated our first year—we don't have the same resources as other businesses that are more established. We have to react a lot quicker. I must stress this: we will find means other than Canada Post to service our customers if they are unable to resolve these issues between the union and the corporation.
For example, in terms of the notes I provided to you, right now I own three community newspapers: one in Dryden, one in Red Lake, and one for our first nations within the region. I own a commercial printing company as well as road signage. We do the regional phone book for Kenora, Dryden, Red Lake, and Sioux Lookout, as well as the in-flight magazine for Wasaya. Out of that, 80% to 100% of our invoices come through Canada Post. With regard to the delivery of the newspapers, we spend on average $5,000 a week, and our mail-out for the commercial printing is about $100 to $200 per parcel. We do a lot of business with Canada Post.
I would say that Canada Post has about 90% of my business. It's very important that Canada Post resolve these issues sooner rather than later, because I cannot jeopardize that business. What that means is that if I lose my business, since we employ 40 individuals with my company, that's 40 individuals who are out of work. My colleague here from Kenora has stated that this region does need jobs in the area.
I'm here to basically say, please resolve your issues. People like me are getting caught in this fight, and I don't like being in this position.
2:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Thank you very much.
Our final panellist will be Ms. Aitken, please, for five minutes.
2:05 p.m.
President, Dryden Local, Canadian Union of Postal Workers, As an Individual
Well, David, I'll let you know that we never said we were going on strike. It was Canada Post that said we were going on strike. We have a tentative collective agreement that is good for a very short time period. We wanted to resolve the issues. We wanted to make sure that we were heard. Anyway, that's just to let you know.
Actually, I've known David for a few years, although I'm sure he doesn't remember.
Yes, small businesses need to have daily delivery. How can you operate by getting money every other day and sending your bills out every other day? That doesn't really work, and there is no need to change that. We are making money. We have made money.
The three years that we haven't made money since 1981—and I'm not even sure they've paid it out yet—are connected to a 30-year old grievance on pay equity with PSAC. The other one was on paper, by accounting, because they changed their accounting principles—I'm not sure on exactly what—so they lost money that year. Then they lost money the one year that we went on strike. Again, they caused the strike. They hired the scabs. They hired the helicopters. They hired everything else.
2:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
For the record, was that 2011, the lockout year, that you're referring to?
2:05 p.m.
President, Dryden Local, Canadian Union of Postal Workers, As an Individual
Yes.
2:10 p.m.
President, Dryden Local, Canadian Union of Postal Workers, As an Individual
I've been there for 42 years, so I've been through a few strikes and I've seen a lot of things change. Why does Canada Post have 22 vice-presidents who are being paid as much as they are? Why does it have a president who's being paid as much as he is? Why did it build brand new buildings in Winnipeg and Vancouver if mail volumes are dropping? Why did it go with all that brand new equipment? Why did it put a machine into Thunder Bay again? There was one there before, and they didn't have enough volume then—and that's when there was mail to keep it running—but no, Canada Post took one out of Ottawa and put it into Thunder Bay. Then it took all of our mail and delayed our mail going out. Canada Post delayed it by two to 10 business days instead of leaving it to be sorted locally and support jobs.
When I first started at the post office, I was making a dollar an hour more than the guys at the mill. I'm now making less than half of what they're making, but I'm still employed, while 600 of them were put out of jobs. They had to go elsewhere, my brothers included. Why? All for the sake of a dollar, because Canada Post wants to make more money.
Again, it is making money. It made money in the first quarter. Why does it make money? It's because it didn't follow the Canada Post Corporation Act and give customers six months' advance notice that it was going to be increasing the price of stamps. It yanked the stamps off the walls and said that those stamps could not be sold because the price was going to increase overnight.
Why did Canada Post take the publication rate away from the small newspapers? There was nothing wrong with that. That was a subsidy. Maybe that subsidy came through the government—I'm not exactly sure—but it helped the small businesses. It helped the small newspapers. Where are they now? They're paying full price, and that's not right.
I was also really upset when I heard you weren't going to Sandy Lake. That's a shame, because you need to know what it's like in northwestern Ontario. You can't even drive there; you have to fly. There are a whole lot more things going on, and dealing with some place an hour out of Winnipeg, although it's still a drive, is not the same thing.
There's a whole lot more I could say.
2:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
I'm sure we'll get to it in the question period.
Before we start that, though, you should know that we wanted to go to Sandy Lake. We had originally scheduled this committee to go there. Unfortunately, they were not able to accommodate us for a variety of reasons, so we had to withdraw. We will be going, however, to another first nation in Manitoba. Our first choice was Sandy Lake, but it was not our decision to pull back on that location.
We'll start now with our seven-minute round of questions. We'll go with Monsieur Ayoub.
You have seven minutes.
You may want to put on your interpretation devices if you are not fluently bilingual.
2:10 p.m.
Liberal
Ramez Ayoub Liberal Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for being here.
I am very pleased to be in Dryden for the first time, and I am sure my colleagues feel the same way. We may come back again, Ms. Aitken. As the chair said, we wanted to go to Sandy Lake. We want to go to all corners of Canada to hear what people have to say about Canada Post.
I have done a little research. What was your reaction to the information about potentially ending home delivery? I thought I understood that there had been a survey. How did you learn that?
Mr. Scribilo, you can start.
2:10 p.m.
President, Kenora & District Chamber of Commerce
Yes. Our local media warned of a potential strike. In my community in Keewatin, I talked to the ladies in the small rural post office there. They were concerned that if there were bills or things that needed to get out, then we had to make alternate arrangements.
Ontario Hydro is a good example. They said you had to continue to pay your bills, even though there might be an interruption of service from Canada Post. You had to go online or prepay. There was no getting out of your bill, so a lot of this was online and local in our communities.
2:10 p.m.
Liberal
Ramez Ayoub Liberal Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
Maybe you have comments on the business side, Mr. Neegan.
2:10 p.m.
Owner, Norwest Printing and Publishing Group
We heard through the media that there was no correspondence directly from Canada Post.
2:10 p.m.
President, Dryden Local, Canadian Union of Postal Workers, As an Individual
There was no survey, but I got an email from Canada Post back in May addressed to all the small businesses saying that there could be a labour disruption.
2:10 p.m.
Liberal
Ramez Ayoub Liberal Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
I would like to understand, as we have tried to do elsewhere, whether you have been treated differently in terms of the publication of information. Since we began our consultations, we have observed that everything has been imposed, decided in advance, with no public consultation, whether of chambers of commerce or of members of the public. We came to power, and for the first time in ages, a consultation has been organized. That is what we want to do here.
My question is more specifically for Mr. Neegan.
You said you have 40 employees. You also talked about finding alternatives. What are they, in your view, in this region? What kind of competition are you facing?
2:10 p.m.
Owner, Norwest Printing and Publishing Group
More specifically, I also have to let everybody know that before the strike, we had to get our invoices out. What we started doing was contacting individuals through email and fax, and unfortunately, that is the business Canada Post has lost forever. You're not going to get that business again, because we don't have to pay for stamps. You have to be well aware that we are going to adapt no matter what, because we're talking about survival for our business and we will use FedEx, Purolator, or other methods.
We prefer to use Canada Post and will continue giving our business to Canada Post, but if you put me in a position that's going to jeopardize my employees and my business, I'm not going to go there. I'm going to find those other means, and once you lose those means, you lose them forever.
2:15 p.m.
Liberal
Ramez Ayoub Liberal Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
I can understand, if you do not manage to find viable alternatives. Under its mandate, Canada Post delivers everywhere in Canada. The FedExes of this world do not necessarily have to do that. For your 40 employees, there are consequences that translate into job losses.
2:15 p.m.
Owner, Norwest Printing and Publishing Group
In terms of delivering our product to our customers, there are other means besides FedEx and Purolator. There are, we'll say, airways, for example, that deliver to a lot of the first nations up north. It may require us to do a bit more work, but once we have that established, we will continue to use those means. We've learned so far that Canada Post is very convenient for us because there is an office right here in Dryden, whereas if we use Wasaya, we do have to go to the terminals and so forth, but by doing that, we are also saving $30-$40 per shipment, which adds up over the year.
2:15 p.m.
Liberal
Ramez Ayoub Liberal Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
We have been told elsewhere that the post office had a social role to play, that it was a place for the community to gather and talk.
Is that also the case in Dryden?