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.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
I presume there was a certain amount of mail that was local within the current region or within what would have been the sort region for Dryden, whereas the rest of the mail still would have been sent off and sorted in Thunder Bay for international and national markets.
Member, Canadian Union of Postal Workers, As an Individual
Actually, here's the really fun one. We used to have a port of entry into the United States in Winnipeg, so there was Vancouver, Winnipeg, and Toronto. The geniuses at Canada Post decided to eliminate the port of entry to the United States, so if one of my kids wants to send granny a letter, and she lives in International Falls, it has to go Toronto to cross over and come back to International Falls, which is just across the border south of us.
With the idea of centralizing mail sortation, there have been a number of mistakes that increased costs. For many years it's almost been as though Canada Post has been attempting business suicide so that they will have a platform for privatization, because it is so obvious—
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
I want to explore the relationship a little bit between Canada Post and Purolator. Do you know people who work in Purolator? You've been around this business for a long time.
Member, Canadian Union of Postal Workers, As an Individual
I have a local delivery fellow for Purolator who just had to move up to Sioux Lookout because their routes have been reduced.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
As between the benefits and labour offered by Canada Post versus Purolator, would you have received comparable wages and benefits for doing similar work?
Member, Canadian Union of Postal Workers, As an Individual
Had I worked for Purolator, the wage would have been similar, if a little less. The benefits would not be as good.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
How would that affect your ability to raise your family here in Dryden?
Member, Canadian Union of Postal Workers, As an Individual
It would have been compromised somewhat.
What we should remember is that for all these Canada Post benefits—for example, the optical one for eyeglasses—I go down the street a block and a half, I pay a local businessman through my benefits at Canada Post, and his business stays in Dryden and stays open.
I've heard a number of comments from business leaders in this community. Perhaps they don't realize how it works. The benefit packages for people in small communities ensure small businesses in those communities stay viable and stay open. This is how it all works, especially with a national company like Canada Post. Our profits aren't going to the United States or Germany. Our profits are being used in our communities.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
When we look at other things in terms of competition between Purolator and Canada Post and the Canada Post differential products, such as express mail service versus regular mail, do you feel that the right balance is there, or do you feel that the best possible service should be offered, or are we making some services inferior so that we can sell other services at a higher price? From your perspective as a mail carrier, how does this all work?
Member, Canadian Union of Postal Workers, As an Individual
As a breakdown for Canada Post services, we used to offer a premium service called “Priority Courier” for delivery in a very short amount of time and before noon. It was targeted to businesses. You could get your business mail to another business next day between major centres, before noon—premium price, free signature.
They gradually started reducing that level of service, even though it meant that in Dryden it was never a day between major centres. You would have a day to Winnipeg or a day to Thunder Bay, but it's not a major centre. They started reducing that level of service, and then it became that you no longer had to deliver that product before noon. The logic was that they were having to pay people more to deviate from their normal line of travel to deliver that product before noon—
Liberal
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
I'm afraid we have to cut it off there, but thank you very much for that.
We'll go now to our two final interventions of five minutes each.
Mr. McCauley is next.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Mr. Pareis, I was chatting earlier with another postal worker who was mentioning his route. He does parcel delivery as well. He said he parks, does his mail delivery, and goes back to his truck, and then drives basically the same route to do the larger parcel delivery. Do you do the same? I'm missing something. When you talked about the motorized—
Member, Canadian Union of Postal Workers, As an Individual
We currently don't have trucks. Our current mode of delivery is foot delivery. I have somebody who does my oversized parcels—this is a contractor, mind you—and deposits my mailbags in the street boxes, the relay boxes, for me to pick up. I travel up from the post office with a load of mail, arrive at a box on the street and pick up another load of mail, recharge my bags, and continue.
Conservative
Member, Canadian Union of Postal Workers, As an Individual
Yes, the other person does the parcel delivery.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Okay. It just sounds like they're operating in a different way, then.
Member, Canadian Union of Postal Workers, As an Individual
This is one of my points. There are a myriad of different ways of delivering the mail in Canada. My suggestion is to go with what is known as the MMC concept, and that's to motorize everyone so that they're performing all the functions and there's no duplication. I can be delivering a letter and a small parcel at the same that Sandra, who is a contractor, is coming up to the same door with—
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
I get what you're saying now. You do mail only, Bill does mail only, and Frank does mail only, and one person is in a truck doing parcels for all three. I wanted to clarify that.
Thanks very much.
Conservative
Conservative
John Brassard Conservative Barrie—Innisfil, ON
Gentlemen, I'm going to allow you to use the time we have left to express any further thoughts you might have for the committee. You have a minute and half each.
Go ahead, Mr. Parkes.
President, Vermilion Bay, Happy Go Lucky Seniors Club
It's interesting just hearing about the banking issue. Losing services in a small community of seniors living on pensions is also of concern. Anything that makes those people get into a vehicle to drive to a larger community for a service that should be in their community costs them. I'm always reluctant to say “everybody survives”, but I wonder if some people out there are eating well and everything else, because they have the added expense of going to a larger community for services that we wish they had in our community.
All I can speak about today is the post office issue, because right now it's near and dear to my heart to make sure that we don't ever lose it. It's such a valuable part of our community. I'm sure there are other communities out there that are suffering the same dilemma that we're in today. When you do your reports to whomever, and everything else that has to be done, I hope that you keep in mind the devastating effect it would have on small communities should it ever be decided to go to the mailboxes over the post office.
Member, Canadian Union of Postal Workers, As an Individual
I just want to re-emphasize the function of a public post office and what those, according to some, exorbitant wages do in communities and in Canada. This is a publicly owned institution. We can make it work for all Canadians. It can provide decent jobs with decent benefits, and those can, in turn, employ other Canadians. It can be a win-win-win.
Thank you.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Our final intervention today, gentlemen, will come from Mr. Ayoub. I believe he will be make his presentation en français, so if you don't parle français, you may want to use your translation devices.
Mr. Ayoub, you have five minutes.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm going to start with Mr. Pareis.
I would like to understand the change concerning parcels a little better.
Since 2013, Post Canada has wanted to focus more on parcel delivery. What is the current situation in Dryden, where Purolator and Canada Post offer parcel delivery services? Has there been an increase, or a decrease?