Government Operations Committee on Oct. 3rd, 2016

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you, everyone.

My understanding is that Mr. Peddle is not here but, hopefully, will be arriving shortly. We will get going. I like to ensure that all our meetings start on time and end on time.

My name is Tom Lukiwski. I'm the chair of the government operations and estimates committee, which is travelling across Canada talking and consulting with Canadians, organizations, individuals, those affected by Canada Post, and those who use Canada Post about how they want to see the future of Canada Post unfold.

The minister has engaged in a very extensive consultation process. Phase one was the establishment of a task force charged with the responsibility of examining the long-term financial viability of Canada Post. The task force has completed its report. That report has been tabled. This committee has had a chance to examine that report.

Now we're in phase two, where we are talking to Canadians from coast to coast to coast, and getting their views on what they would like to see as far as what Canada Post's future may hold. That's why we're here today.

The process we will follow today is fairly simple. We'll ask all of our panellists to give a brief five-minute or less opening statement. Following that, we will have questions and answers sessions with our committee members. Hopefully, the session will wrap up in about an hour.

The first speaker on the list is His Worship Mayor Pender.

Mayor Pender, you have five minutes or less, please.

[Charles Pender, Mayor, City of Corner Brook]

We'll do our best.

Good morning, and welcome to Corner Brook.

I'm here to represent the City of Corner Brook, obviously. I just want to acknowledge your visit here and thank you for taking the time to come and listen to the people of our community.

About this time last year, the City of Corner Brook was advised that Canada Post had the intention of implementing the community mailbox program in our community and eliminating the door-to-door service that had existed for some 50 or 60 years, I guess, since we've been a city. During that time we had consultations with a number of people—interest groups, businesses, and individuals—who felt they would be negatively impacted by that change and lobbied strongly not to see that implemented.

The majority of the feedback we received was opposition to the elimination of the door-to-door service. We have an aging community. We have a community that has challenges, I'll say, when it comes to topography. We live in a bowl, and I hope you have the opportunity to get out and look. We have streets that are at 20% grade, so we have some very difficult terrain. We don't have sidewalks on all our streets. We are a rural community, even though we're the regional hub. We get 16 feet of snow in an average winter; sometimes we get a little less. We do get 20-odd feet of snow sometimes. All of these things present very grave challenges for us as a city.

The elimination of door-to-door service, then, also meant that these challenges would be amplified for people who depend on door-to-door service. We particularly had concerns about our aging population, people with mobility issues, people who found it, on a good day, difficult to get around. Combine the terrain, the weather, and the lack of proper infrastructure in an urban setting and challenging seniors and other people to attempt to get to a community mailbox was just not going to happen. For many of our residents, including people with disabilities who found it challenging to get around our community, that was one of the biggest concerns that was brought forward.

We had some concerns brought forward about the cost and the additional stress placed on residents, and of course the cost to businesses as well. One of the things we heard from our seniors, in particular, and people with mobility issues is the need to have documentation for medical reasons to continue to have door-to-door service if the community mailboxes were implemented, and even that was a challenge in a community that's lacking doctors for about 9,000 people. We have a number of challenges.

This one decision, if it had been implemented, would have created a lot of difficulties for residents of this area, in particular the aging population. We are an aging community. We'll see when Statistics Canada comes out with the numbers, but our average age, I think, is about 50 years old. We are one of the older communities in Newfoundland and Labrador. Those things were brought to our attention.

As we know, right now, in the latest numbers from the federal government, seniors are now outnumbering children for the first time in recorded history, especially in our province. That is a concern for us. We would like you to consider how we reorganize things based on an aging population, a senior population, especially in rural Canada, rural Newfoundland and Labrador. We consider ourselves to be in rural Canada.

From an economic perspective, a decline or elimination of door-to-door mail service would have a negative impact on our community. Postal carrier positions as well would be eliminated, which was also a concern for us. Again, we have seen in this community the elimination of federal positions all across the board. We have a big federal government building that's almost empty. Luckily, the Veterans Affairs office was recently reopened, but we've seen a continual decline in all federal services in this area.

There are other things that we could talk about, and I'm sure you'll get to them in the questions.

One option we just want to touch on is the possibility of Canada Post implementing postal banking in rural areas. I'm not sure whether that's feasible or not, but we've seen this in other countries and it works. There may be an opportunity, if you're looking for revenue generation, to look at that type of opportunity as well, and I would encourage that.

I think my five minutes are pretty well up, so I am going to hold it there. I welcome your questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much, Your Worship.

Next we have Mr. Gardner for five minutes, please.

[Terry Gardner, Former Vice-President, Newfoundland and Labrador, Coalition of Persons with Disabilities]

You're going to have to bear with me a little bit. This is probably as much reading as I've done in the last 12 years. It's really tough stuff here.

Dear members of Parliament, and the Government of Canada's Standing Committee on Operations and Estimates, first I would like to thank you for this opportunity to speak in front of you today on behalf of persons with disabilities.

Today I want to try to take you from what you're going to hear as you cross Canada—a lot of numbers, and a lot of different means and ways to do different things—down to a personal perspective. I want you to really try to imagine where a person with disabilities is coming from when this is presented to them.

As a person living with a visual disability, and having been connected to the disability community for some 12 years, I would like to make a case for the issues of inequality and hardship involved with the introduction of community mailboxes as opposed to home delivery service.

The federal office responsible for persons with disabilities is currently also planning and/or holding cross-Canada consultations on how the federal office can improve equality for persons with disabilities, and certainly the postal service would fall under these criteria, because hardships encountered physically, emotionally, visually, and mentally would infringe on the rights to equality in our society that our Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees us.

I want you to try to picture in your own mind what it would be like if you actually had to do this, especially if you were in a wheelchair and especially if you were in a rural area where a proper sidewalk would likely be non-existent, and you had to trudge through mud or snow to get to a mailbox only to find out the mailbox is probably too high to get at, or maybe a vehicle is parked in the way so the mailboxes are inaccessible. Persons with a visual impairment who have to go out in the wintertime face the same situation as somebody in a wheelchair does.

The vision-loss community is not a very select group. It encompasses the better part of our society from the young to the old, so imagine those kinds of persons. For somebody with a mental disability, who sometimes finds it hard to get to the door whether because of depression, anxiety, or whatever the mental disability, can you imagine the struggle of trying to get out to a mailbox? Image being a person with hearing loss. As Mayor Pender said, in certain places, we have four-lane intercommunity roads. Imagine the stress for these people as they go up onto a major road to try to get to a mailbox as opposed to having home delivery.

I'm sure a whole lot of numbers will be presented to you, but probably this number should shock you: there are some 3.5 million Canadians living today with disabilities. That's basically 10% of our society, so if we take away the home delivery service and put in these mailboxes, 10% of people right off the bat are going to encounter certain hardship.

Thanks.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

Colleagues, I should also make mention that His Worship was very kind and he kept his remarks to about five minutes, but he has provided a written submission. There are a number of other elements in that submission which we will take into account as we're doing our deliberations, but just for your benefit, he wanted to talk a little bit about mailbox placement, the alternative-day delivery suggestions, the lack of consultation exhibited by Canada Post, and the way we should be looking at Canada Post as an essential service rather than just looking at whether it is profitable as the key consideration.

Mayor Pender, I hope I summarized your points fairly well.

We'll go into the question and answer process.

The first intervener will be Mr. Whalen, for seven minutes, please.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

I'd like to thank Mr. Gardner and Mr. Pender for coming today to provide their unique viewpoints on how changes to Canada Post will affect their communities.

Certainly, Mr. Gardner, there's no need to apologize if our process makes you feel in any way uncomfortable about trying to get your remarks out. Our apologies for that. You were very eloquent, and thank you for your perspective.

Mr. Pender, as the mayor of Corner Brook, I'm assuming you have a fairly good understanding not only of the services available in Corner Brook, but also throughout the Long Range Mountains region in terms of what's available in the different communities. Is that a fair assessment?

[Charles Pender]

In the larger communities I would, yes.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

In terms of the lack of funding and financing that Canada Post has available to it to carry on its operations, the task force suggests that 10 years out it will be looking at a $700-million deficit in a business-as-usual scenario. The task force provided a number of possible options, and even if all of those options were implemented, it wouldn't be enough to overcome the deficit. There's still a real problem and a real challenge that faces us in terms of the continuation of Canada Post.

You view it as an essential service. How do the businesses in Corner Brook use Canada Post to generate revenue?

[Charles Pender]

I wouldn't know how the businesses use it in particular. I do know, though, that my father operated a business for 50 years here in Corner Brook and he went to the post office twice a day, because a lot of his payments at that time came through cheques and things like that. Obviously the world has changed since, and there are opportunities for Canada Post to change with that.

One of the biggest impacts that I think the business community would have noticed in Corner Brook was when the decision to move Canada Post from the Main Street location where they'd been for, I guess, 50 years, to an obscure location on the periphery of the city killed our downtown because you had all of the business people, all of the community, heading to the post office every day, probably twice or three times a day, and then that was eliminated.

The postal carriers were also moved to the periphery so the taxi business would have seen a change, the restaurants would have seen a change, and the business people in the downtown would have seen a change. That would be direct in the city of Corner Brook.

As to other areas, obviously we've had changes in how the delivery happens with parcels and things like that, so that would have a big impact on the small businesses in particular. When there was a pending postal strike, for instance, I am aware of a number of small businesses that relied exclusively on Canada Post to deliver their parcels scrambling to find a way to get their parcels delivered. When you're a small business and you have orders and all of a sudden you have to change and you don't have the ability to do so, it was quite an impact on them.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Is that because the sorting isn't happening locally? Why is it that local businesses couldn't rely on Canada Post for parcel delivery?

[Charles Pender]

That's a very good question. Because if I mail a package here, my understanding is it goes to St. John's and then comes back. It doesn't go up the street.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

So it's quicker—

[Charles Pender]

That can't be very effective.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

—for somebody in St. John's to make a sale to local businesses using the post than local people.

[Charles Pender]

If you're in a small business in Stephenville or in Gros Morne, or anywhere like that, in a small community, it's the same thing. It's not going to go across the street or to the community you're sending it to directly. It's going on a truck to St. John's to be sorted, and then it's coming back.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

With seeing Canada Post actually having operated as a hub in your community, and having seen that already pulled away from operating as a hub, if it was to be restored, what additional types of services do you feel that the post office can or should offer? I'm assuming that the banking services in Corner Brook are sufficient.

[Charles Pender]

In Corner Brook, yes.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

What types of services do you feel that hub could offer to reinvigorate your downtown and, by extension, maintain the main streets of rural Canadian communities?

[Charles Pender]

Whether it's in Corner Brook or one of the other communities where postal services have been reduced, I think there are always opportunities for other federal government services that perhaps are not currently available in those smaller communities.

I've spoken of the J.R. Smallwood building here in Corner Brook where the services of the federal government have been pretty well eliminated, except for a few small ones, and they've been basically sent to St. John's. Everything that we do, and we're the second-largest municipality in the province, everything that we rely on from the federal government, except for a couple of services, are basically handled in St. John's now. Somebody might say that's not that far away, but it's 700 kilometres across very difficult terrain and very difficult weather at the best of times, and it does create complications.

I'll point to the veterans, for instance, and their successful lobbying in having the Veterans Affairs offices reopened because of the absolute hardship that was placed on them when they were closed. We see the same thing from Canada Post, from small businesses in particular.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

What about things like Internet service, the banking service along the coast? Do you find that your community's happy to have the foot traffic in Corner Brook to provide those services?

[Charles Pender]

Absolutely.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Do you think those services should be better provided in those communities?

[Charles Pender]

We're expanding broadband across the province here, now, especially in communities that haven't had it. There are still communities that don't have access to Internet service. They have dial-up modems if they're lucky. You don't have cell service everywhere. So having government services in at least the regional centre in the rural areas of Newfoundland and Labrador would be beneficial.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

What about things like hunting and fishing licences? Where would they get them, if they were from Corner Brook, Curling, or L'Anse-au-Loup?

[Charles Pender]

The post office is where you get a lot of those fishing licences and things, or at least we did. I don't know what the new system is, but at one time you went to the Main Street post office if you wanted to buy coins, get something from the Canadian Mint, or get a parcel or a package, a postal order, or a fishing licence. Any of those things you could have done at the main post office.

Whether you can still do that today is beyond me, but there are perhaps other services government could look at that could be offered.