Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you both for coming. Mr. Weir and I tend to do the dance about what was or was not promised in last year's election, but as we each got elected here, obviously the people in our ridings understood what we were both saying.
I want to let you know that this is a legitimate exercise. We're not prejudging the outcome. We're here to listen not only to what the task force is proposing but also what Canadians are proposing. This might not necessarily include restoration of door-to-door delivery in the places that lost it. It doesn't necessarily include anything. We're here to listen honestly to Canadians and come home with recommendations.
When we look at the task force report, we do see that there is a legitimate financial concern. You cannot deny that letter mail volumes are dropping and that revenue from parcels is not high enough to counteract all of that. If you look at the work that management has done over the last few years, you see that their annual report says they achieved $350 million of annual savings through the transformations they've already undertaken. That is probably one of the reasons their bottom line has not been as bad as one would expect. They're trying to address the situation, but it's difficult.
Mr. Pareis, you've worked a long time in postal services. You worked in sorting and you worked in different aspects, and I'm wondering if you could shed some light on whether or not there's a way to get further savings out of efficiencies in the system as it exists, whether you feel that any of the changes have made the service worse, and whether, even if some costs have been saved, opportunities to grow revenue within the banking system have been removed. Could you speak to us a little bit about that from your experience?