Government Operations Committee on Oct. 3rd, 2016

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

Mr. Gardner, in terms of the future of Canada Post, different options were put on the table by the task force. One of them was alternate-day delivery, and of course, Canada Post does have a mechanism by which, if it was better handled, people with disabilities could get some form of limited door-to-door delivery. What do you think your members would be okay with in terms of the number of visits per week to their homes for mail delivery, if community mailboxes were expanded to include Corner Brook?

[Terry Gardner]

The very first thing I would say is that it would be the last option for persons with disabilities. The life of a person with a disability on a daily basis is so complicated that if you are going to do alternate-day service or something, that in itself would extend the troubles or the difficulties that persons with disabilities have in their lives.

Yes, alternate-day delivery would be better than no home delivery service, but we would advocate for home delivery service every day.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

Mr. McCauley, you have seven minutes, please.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Good morning, gentlemen.

It's great to be here. I haven't been in Corner Brook since 2002. Everything is just as beautiful, though it was sunny the last time I was here. It was in July.

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

It's getting there.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

It's great to be back.

Mr. Pender, you talked about Canada Post having discussed switching to community mailboxes in Corner Brook. How long ago was that? How far down the path did they get with that?

Coming in, I think I saw community mailboxes further out, so I think some other communities have them. How far along did they get with you here?

[Charles Pender]

In the newer developments, we have community mailboxes, and we have accepted that Canada Post will install community mailboxes when we build new subdivisions, new roads, and new areas to live in. Some of the rural communities around us have had community mailboxes since they were implemented, and then they lost their local post office. Across to the north shore, Irishtown-Summerside and places like that would have community mailboxes long before we would in Corner Brook.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Do you have some here already?

[Charles Pender]

We do have some. As I said, they would be in the newer subdivisions that have been recently built.

However, when the process started, I guess two years ago, community mailboxes were put in the downtown near some of the seniors' homes or affordable housing, I would say. One was installed on Park Street, because the mail carriers had some issues about no sidewalks when they were delivering mail on a busy street, West Valley Road, and for us to put in a sidewalk to accommodate that was a $100,000 expense, so a mailbox went in. The difference is that this mailbox is close to a kilometre away from people living in that area, which is an older, well-developed area of the city with many older people and people with disabilities.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

It's difficult, because we can't have everything, of course. You mentioned, and we hear it too, that they want more consultation. From a municipality point of view, if it is going to happen, what would work best? Would the two of you, Canada Post and yourselves, each have a veto on where it goes, or is it just more discussion with the engineering folks or other groups? What would work best for you as a city mayor?

[Charles Pender]

I think the initial contact was, “We are going to put these in, and we want to work with the city.” I guess the feedback from residents was that they didn't want them, so we weren't apt to be very co-operative in terms of turning over all our documents, maps, and so on.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I hear that a lot as well.

[Charles Pender]

In some cases, we probably didn't have up-to-date mapping either, because we are just converting all our files to GIS, so we are probably behind larger communities in that respect.

However, one of the issues that our engineers came back with was that we don't have sidewalks on every residential street. We actually keep space on the sides of the roads and at the end of each street for snow clearing. Canada Post may walk in and say, “Oh, there's a nice spot to put a mailbox.” Well, if you want to take it out with a loader in the winter, yes, that's a good spot.

It's very difficult to coordinate. We saw the experience in Montreal and we saw it in St. John's where they just decided they were going to put a mailbox somewhere, whether the community agreed to it or not. I think the last conversation or indication we had from Canada Post was, “If you don't agree with where we are going to put them, we are going to put them there anyway.”

Of course, they have the right to put the mailboxes on public property wherever they see fit.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

They have the right, but I think the idea is that if they want to put it somewhere, they need to find out the local knowledge.

[Charles Pender]

Exactly, and if you want to have a box buried in snow or taken out with a snowplow in the middle of winter, put it where you want and see what happens.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

It needs a lot more community input.

Earlier Mr. Whalen observed that the numbers going forward do not look very good. It's three-quarters of a billion, or some are saying $1 billion in losses, and the money has to come from somewhere. Cities are screaming for infrastructure, but we're also looking for health care, palliative care, and so on.

It is the reality. I see that the gas taxes have been jacked up so much. Faced with that, is the community willing to accept higher stamp prices or higher taxes to offset that, or do you think, with the realities we face, we might have to change the—

[Charles Pender]

The reality is that things go up. Things do cost more, and I think everybody accepts that. That's part of reality. The other point is, though, that Canada Post is a federal government service, and we seem to have forgotten the word “service” in everything we look at when it becomes government services. I deal with the same issue. In the municipality, we have to provide service and that comes at a cost. So what is the cost of service?

By doing what you're doing here today, talking to Canadians about what that level of service is, that should answer your question on what the federal government should be spending, or Canada Post should be spending, on that service. You represent us and we expect a certain level of service, and it's Canada Post's mandate to deliver.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Yes, that's one of the reasons we're out here, to hear from people. We've done extensive consulting and surveying, and unfortunately, probably as you're seeing here, people don't want to pay more for stamps. They certainly don't want to pay taxes to subsidize it, but by the way, they don't want us to touch the service. That's where we're stuck right now. People are saying they don't want to pay more and they don't want to pay higher taxes.

[Charles Pender]

I'm going to offer a local comment.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Yes, please.

[Charles Pender]

They shut down the main post office, yet we have a federal government building, the Joseph R. Smallwood building, pretty well empty of government services. To put that offer out to tender for space for a post office on the periphery of the city when you had a perfectly good, brand new government building sitting on a main thoroughfare, just doesn't make any sense.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Yes.

[Charles Pender]

Maybe the decision-making process itself with how Canada Post spends its money should be reviewed as well.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Certainly a lot more closely with the people affected.

Do I have 30 seconds?

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

About that.