Government Operations Committee on Oct. 3rd, 2016

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Gardner, thanks for being here. It's wonderful to know that you did the Ironman with Simon Whitfield. That's amazing.

[Terry Gardner]

Thank you.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Very quickly, regarding the community mailboxes, Canada Post does have a system set up where they do once-a-week delivery. Do you think if Canada Post made it more accessible, easier to fill out the forms, and so on, that might be more acceptable to people, to the seniors or the handicapped or disabled?

Mr. Pender, you could chime in as well.

[Terry Gardner]

No, not at all, because as Mr. Pender mentioned, our community is aging. The average age is 50.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

It's the same situation everywhere else.

[Terry Gardner]

So the people who are using home delivery are people who are in a position where technology is probably not a big part of their lives. Home delivery is what they've had all their lives, what they depend on, what they expect.

No. It is what it is, so to speak, and the change in it at all, from home delivery service as opposed to the mailbox service, I just don't think is going to fly.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Fair enough. Thank you very much.

Mr. Weir, for seven minutes, please.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

I'd like to thank you for your compelling presentations in favour of door-to-door mail delivery. Certainly it's a vital public service and one that would be taken for granted in every other G7 country.

In a way, it's strange that we're even discussing this, given that we have a federal government that was elected on a promise to restore home mail delivery. There has recently been some attempt to reinterpret that promise. I wonder if you could speak to your understanding of the Liberal platform on home mail delivery and what you expect of the new federal government.

[Charles Pender]

I'll just say that when that promise, if you want to call it that, was made, it certainly lightened the load on me as the mayor and on our council and on our city with respect to this issue. We had a lot of representation. We had public meetings as well. I don't know if you realize it, but in Corner Brook, if you can get 10 people out to a meeting, that's a crowd. We'd have 60, 70, or 80 people out, or more. Most of them were seniors or people with disabilities who were going to be challenged by this change.

The promise, then, to maintain door-to-door service meant to us that what we have now we would keep. I would expect that in new subdivisions where you put in the amenities such as sidewalks, you would put community mailboxes where it would be logical to place them. We don't have an issue with that going forward, but we would see it as an impact on those who have that service now, who would lose any level of service.

[Terry Gardner]

Absolutely. Not only would the Coalition of Persons with Disabilities see it that way, but also many other organizations involved with persons with disabilities, or the elderly, or whatever the case may be. Just when people got together through general discussion about what was going to happen with the community mailboxes and how they thought they were going to be forced upon them, just the stress and people generally talking about how they were going to manage, how they were going to take care of this, wondering if they were going to have to depend on somebody else again to go to the mailbox and take away their independence, so to speak....

When the Liberal government promised to put it back, people assumed it was going to be put back to the way that it was. To talk now about a combination of both or, as the question referred to earlier, a decrease in home delivery service, makes people uneasy about that. It's not what they're expecting from what they were told.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Absolutely.

Mayor Pender, you raised the possibility of postal banking as an option to make better use of Canada Post's infrastructure. I got to Corner Brook a little bit early and had the opportunity to see some of the outlying communities. I noticed that many of them did not have bank branches, but all of them had post offices. I wonder if you might elaborate a little on the potential for postal banking here in Newfoundland and Labrador.

[Charles Pender]

I don't want to take any business away from regional banks, or the banks here in Corner Brook, but I've lived and worked in Burgeo, Baie Verte and Gander, and other communities that did have banks at one time and have seen the banks close down. Those people are obligated to come to a larger centre, such as Corner Brook, which could be a two-hour-plus drive each way. In the winter you could be stuck on the road overnight, which has happened to me more than once.

To be able to at least look at that as an option and whether it's viable.... I know there are set-up costs and things like that, but we do have a large rural community in Canada and, in particular, in Newfoundland and Labrador and Atlantic Canada. Maybe that's an opportunity, where post offices do exist. My wife is from France so I have used the postal banking over there quite a lot and in other European countries. It's very convenient because you can find them in a small community, where you need it and when you need it, and you do not always have to go to the large centres.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

I'd also like to touch on the question of alternate-day delivery. Mr. Gardner, I think you made it clear that you would regard that as better than no home delivery, but certainly inadequate compared to delivery every day. I wonder if you would like to chime in on that as well, Mayor Pender.

[Charles Pender]

I would say that probably what we actually have right now is alternate-day delivery, since we don't get mail every day because there's not enough mail to be delivered every day. If that's currently happening, I don't know whether the cost savings have been calculated, if there are any, but currently if I get the mail three days a week, I'd be surprised, and that's about it.

I do particularly subscribe to.... All my banks and whatever I deal with, I always ask for it to be sent to me in the mail. I don't use the electronic.... I can. I have that option. But I believe in supporting Canada Post as well. So it is in existence right now. I don't know if we would see much of a change in the level of service than what we're seeing right now, if we did go to alternate-day banking, but that's from my point of view. I'm sure Mr. Gardner would have a different point of view about that.

[Terry Gardner]

Again, and to repeat myself really, in the everyday life of a person with disabilities the importance of having that, I guess, is probably too good really, if you want to look at it that way. But it's what we've come to expect. It's what we expect now to be done, to be put back to where it was.

People with a disability have to be able to structure their lives in a way to make things work for them in a certain way in order to maintain a reasonable level of equality in our world, to maintain a certain amount of integrity in themselves. If you have to change all that because of the mail delivery service, and you don't know when it's going to be, it would just make things so much harder.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Absolutely, and well said.

Mayor Pender, I understand you had some additional points in your written submission. I think we've drawn some of them out in the questions. Is there anything else in your submission that you'd like to mention, given a little bit more time?

[Charles Pender]

We've already discussed the idea of service and that Canada Post is a federal government service. When you offer a service, we expect, I guess in rural Canada, rural Newfoundland and Labrador, to see that service continue.

There was a promise made by the current government during the campaign, and we took that to mean that this service would be maintained on a go-forward basis, so we would like to see that as the status quo.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

We will now go to Mr. Ayoub.

You have seven minutes.

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Gentlemen, I thank both of you for being here with us. I am very pleased to be here in the city of Corner Brook, in Newfoundland and Labrador, for the first time. It is a great honour for us to do this tour, to meet with you and to be able to take stock of the reality on the ground.

This is the beginning of the second week of our tour. We have already been talking about Canada Post for a week now, and we see a certain evolution. This is really giving us an opportunity to get a reading on the situation.

Before asking my questions, I would summarize the facts by saying that everywhere, we hear from citizens who want to keep a quality postal service in its entirety. That is the case everywhere. However, I note that resistance to change varies from one place to the next.

Mr. Mayor, concerning the changes Canada Post has asked you—and your citizens—to accept, would you have been more open to a gradual change, to new solutions, if a consultation like this had been held at the outset, if you had been asked about your needs, and if, in particular, the impact and consequences for persons with mobility impairments had been taken into account?

Could the solutions have been anything besides the status quo? In my opinion you would probably have been more open if progressive changes had been proposed, and new solutions. Canada Post has evolved over the past 50 or 100 years. The status quo does not seem to be the answer.

What would you think of a prior consultation aimed at jointly agreed upon changes?

[Charles Pender]

There is no doubt that discussing things in advance with people and considering possible solutions to existing problems can provide some relief to the population. People resist change, that's normal. However it is always a positive thing to take the time to consult people, to go into the community to discuss problems rather than to simply announce a change, without any possible discussion. Even if in the final analysis people do not accept the change, they are better informed about the process and have a better understanding of why the changes were made.

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

And that was not done.

[Charles Pender]

One of the biggest problems is that people seem to have been forced after the fact to deal with a situation they did not want.

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Mr. Gardner, you have the floor.

[Terry Gardner]

Yes, absolutely. You mentioned change and progress, and moving forward. In the disability world, persons with disabilities, we've been left so far behind for so long that we haven't had a chance to catch up. In our society, which is considered to be probably one of the better ones in the world, when it comes to dealing with persons with disabilities, we haven't had a chance to catch up. You're actually moving so far ahead that we'll never catch up, and we'll never have the opportunity to catch up.

I do apologize if this comes out the wrong way, but somebody needs to stop and listen to the people, and listen to what they're saying, and what they need. Persons with disabilities need to be given a chance to catch up to mainstream society. Until that happens, we'll always be behind with the postal service, and I'm sure I could talk about a whole lot of other things.

That has to be given consideration. Give us a chance to catch up.

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

My question is addressed to the mayor and to Mr. Gardner. If we take a broader view of the situation, because we have to consider Canada-wide solutions, would you like to see more personalized solutions, tailored to particular regions?

Let's take Corner Brook, for instance. This city is characterized by more frequent bad weather, and a larger number of mobility-impaired aging citizens. Is this the type of discussion and solutions you would like to see, rather than a one-size-fits-all, blanket approach? Given the vastness of Canada, Canada Post may not have such solutions. I would even go so far as to say that that is a foregone conclusion.

Does that potential approach interest you?