Government Operations Committee on Oct. 3rd, 2016

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

The corporation—

[Gary Gosine]

Yes, we were contacted. We went to bat for our post office, to absolutely no avail.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Okay. The bottom line is that you do not feel you were engaged in the process when they put in the community mailboxes.

[Gary Gosine]

Definitely not. They wanted to go from a 40-hour work week in a store that was already open 70 or 80 hours a week down to 13 hours a week.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Was this post office there within your community, and was it acting as a hub for your community? Would people gather together at that post office to do their business?

[Gary Gosine]

Yes. The post office had moved, but the old post office had probably been in place for over 50 years.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

I have a quick question.

Canada Post's review says that Lettermail has been reduced, but that Admail has gone up. In your experience, is this true? Have you decreased your day-to-day door delivery of letters but increased Admail?

[Craig Dyer]

Yes. The first-class letter with the stamp on it has definitely decreased. There is no argument there. Our direct mail and our parcels have increased significantly.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Has there been any modernization? You talked about route changes. Has there been something that has created efficiency or inefficiency?

[Craig Dyer]

The changes in 2011 and 2015 were due to the introduction of technology and also transformation, machines that sort the mail for us. In 2015, it was the introduction of the community mailboxes and the loss of door-to-door delivery for 28,000 residents. It wasn't a decrease in volume; it was a change in process.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Has your workforce—

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

Gentlemen, thank you very much for your appearance here today. Should you have additional information that you think would benefit our committee in its deliberations, please feel free in directing it to our clerk. We'll make sure this information forms part of your testimony. You can get a hold of our clerk after this meeting, if you want to get her coordinates as to how to make sure the information comes to her attention.

Thank you both for taking the time to be here. More particularly, thank you both for your perspective and your candour.

We will suspend for a few moments while we wait for the next set of panellists to approach the table.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, we'll begin. Mr. Whalen is predisposed for a moment or two, but I know he will be back with us very shortly.

Ladies, it looks like you were in the room for most of the first presentations, so I think you know how this all works. We're going to ask each of you to give a short opening statement, which is hopefully no more than five minutes. That will allow adequate time for the questions and answers from committee members. It has been our experience that most of the information that helps us comes out during the questions and answers. If you don't have enough time in five minutes to get all of your points out, I can assure that those points will probably come out during the Q and As.

We will begin now with Ms. Dawson as our first intervenor. You have five minutes, please, Ms. Dawson.

[Kimberly Yetman Dawson, Executive Director, Empower, The Disability Resource Centre]

Thank you very much for the invitation to present. I'd like to welcome you to Newfoundland and Labrador. I'm impressed that you have included us in your nationwide consultations, because quite often we're left off the mark.

I'm here on behalf of Empower, the Disability Resource Centre. We have 450 members and we provide approximately 10,000 services annually throughout the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. We are a cross-disability organization, supporting people with disabilities to live independent lives. In 2015 there were more than 73,000 people here in our province who had a disability.

First and foremost, we must remember that Canada Post has a mandate to provide universal services. We all have the right to mail services, whether we have a disability or not. However, in any changes you are making to Canada Post, I would ask that consideration be given to people such as me, who have a disability—for instance, people who use a wheelchair and can't get to their mailbox, or those who have agoraphobia and are afraid to leave home.

As we've seen, people do not like change and they don't react well to it. When change is not communicated effectively, that compounds the problem.

I have five very short recommendations.

Number one, ensure community mailboxes are accessible and safe. This means access for anyone, anytime, no matter what the mobility is, and it means through all seasons. We've had instances of the snow not being cleared or conditions being too icy to allow people to get to the existing community mailboxes. Canada Post has not been clear as to the area around the box they are responsible to clear snow from. This impedes anyone who has a mobility issue from getting to their mailbox and getting their mail.

Community mailboxes also need to be placed in safe areas, where vulnerable populations will feel less vulnerable and more safe. One of our consumers who was unable to reach her mailbox called the toll-free helpline and was told to get someone else to get her mail. That's not a solution. It's not effective for our consumers who want to live independently. It also puts them at risk of someone else knowing their business, tampering with their mail, and theft. We need to find a better solution for those who require accommodation.

Number two, avoid barriers. If you are accommodating someone and asking them to provide a letter from a doctor, this can be cost prohibitive, or they may not even have a doctor. Please consider this when you're looking to make accommodations for people.

Number three, provide additional services. Postal banking is an opportunity to have banking services in communities where none exist. I know it would be beneficial here, as we have many rural areas in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Number four, communicate changes effectively. Personally, I believe Canada Post is near and dear to people's hearts. It's like ice hockey, maple syrup, and health care. We don't want Canada Post privatized, so any changes to it must be communicated effectively.

Number five, partner with independent living centres such as ours. This would help in communicating your message effectively to consumers. Whatever changes and decisions you make, they must be communicated effectively to the community, and we can help do that.

Thank you for your work thus far, and I congratulate you on your thoroughness.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

Next up we have Ms. Christy for five minutes, please.

[Emily Christy, Executive Director, Newfoundland and Labrador, Coalition of Persons with Disabilities]

Thank you.

Dear members of Parliament and the standing committee on operations and estimates, thank you for the opportunity for the Coalition of Persons with Disabilities, Newfoundland and Labrador, to be consulted about the Canada Post review process.

Currently it's estimated that one in five people in Canada live with disabilities. That's 3,775,910 individuals who will be affected by the decisions that are made with regard to postal service and how Canada Post as a crown corporation moves forward.

In the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, with close to 75,000 citizens in this province having at least one disability, the concerns about changes in service for persons with disabilities become even more discouraging as we reflect on the changes made in the metro St. John's area, and to our rural and remote communities where services and provisions are even more at risk and bring even more challenges to access and equity.

The major concerns in this province for persons with disabilities are as follows: the ending of home mail delivery service or reduction in service, access and safety of community mailboxes, the lack of independence and privacy given to persons with disabilities with the changes in service, and persons with non-visible disabilities not being afforded the rights of access to accessible services based on medical regulations.

To end door-to-door delivery would have many negative impacts on persons with disabilities. Converting the mail service to community mailboxes increases barriers in the built environment for persons with disabilities, whether the community mailbox is difficult to reach because of the height of the box location, uneven or icy snow-covered terrain, difficulty or inability to read the box number because of low vision or disability, and increased safety risks of accessing boxes on busy roadways or in poorly lit post offices during off-hours.

Home delivery is part of a personal safety plan for persons with disabilities. Being told that you should ask a family member, friend, or caregiver to pick up your mail on your behalf as a solution to inaccessibility of community mailboxes removes the independence and privacy for persons with disabilities, independence and privacy which are afforded to the rest of the citizens of this province. Giving the suggestion as a solution to the mail retrieval process removes the equity which persons with disabilities should be afforded.

Beyond just the autonomy that door-to-door service provides for persons with disabilities, there are serious concerns about safety and fraud that allowing someone else to pick up your mail generates. Persons with disabilities are at greater risk of being financially abused or stolen from, and this can be exacerbated by having to ask someone to pick up your mail. If you are in a shared, supportive housing situation with someone you don't know, and thus sharing a community mailbox with essentially a stranger, the possibility that your mail could be tampered with, stolen, or inadvertently lost is out of your control. You could not receive notice of appointments or change in wait-list for programs you were trying to access. You could lose benefit cheques.

Having your mail pass through more hands increases the chance of error, fraud, and distrustful situations. Individuals with mental illnesses such as agoraphobia, paranoia, or post-traumatic stress disorder may find it impossible to get to the mailbox. Others who deal with chronic illness or episodic disabilities may also experience additional fatigue or pain that would prevent them from getting to a community mailbox before parcels are returned to the sender or the box runs out of space to hold their mail.

The need for proof of eligibility for service becomes another barrier to service for persons with disabilities. The difficulty is not only financial, but also how the scope of criteria is developed and how that could be exclusionary to persons with non-visible disabilities. Assessing a family doctor is becoming more and more difficult in this province, especially in rural communities, and just having the ability to get such an approval process signed off could pose the greatest barrier of all. Regulating this kind of eligibility would be an additional cost and put persons with disabilities, especially those with non-visible disabilities, under surveillance.

If services are discontinued, we endorse the Council of Canadians with Disabilities' position to simply decrease the frequency of home delivery and not remove it completely. We call on the Government of Canada to uphold its commitment to the rights of persons with disabilities as set forth in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and to afford the citizens of this province equitable service, especially those in rural and remote communities.

There is an interesting suggestion coming forward in terms of increasing the strength and delivery of service by this crown corporation. With regard to persons with disabilities in rural and remote communities, it's clear that a program like postal banking would create opportunity for persons with disabilities who do not have financial banking services in their communities.

As noted in the CUPW presentation materials, there could also be opportunities to leverage community development models such as those found in Calgary's Momentum to enhance financial literacy, to create microlending opportunities, and to assist unemployed or underemployed Canadians with disabilities with opportunities towards economic empowerment.

Investing in Canada Post and increasing its services to make it a stronger and more competitive force in the market is a great way for Canada to invest in and serve persons with disabilities, by showing them dignity, fairness, and respect in the form of mail delivery service and investing in the communities in which we live.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

Finally, we have Ms. Callahan. You have five minutes, please.

[Sharron Callahan, Chair, St. John's-Avalon Chapter, Canadian Association of Retired Persons]

Good evening.

I sit here this evening as chair of the CARP St. John's-Avalon chapter. CARP, for those know the acronym, is the Canadian Association of Retired Persons. Our CARP membership in Newfoundland and Labrador is more than 1,000. In addition, I'm chair of the Newfoundland and Labrador Coalition of Pensioners, Retirees, and Seniors Organizations.

Seniors represent the single most powerful segment of our society. According to the census of 2011 for Newfoundland and Labrador, the population of persons aged 55 years and over is 163,880. If you extend the relationship of these persons to include adult children and other connected persons, the range of outreach and usage by those persons extends to well over 300,000. This represents real power when it comes to public awareness on issues that have an impact on them, and it is important that the voices of older persons are recognized with the information, knowledge, and credibility that they bring to matters influencing public policy, so CARP St. John's-Avalon chapter and the coalition appreciate the opportunity to bring forward the perspective of older persons through this presentation this evening.

It is recognized that the cost to deliver postal services has increased dramatically. In addition, the dynamics associated with living in a digital age must be examined and considered in the interests of efficiency and effectiveness and to reduce the burden of cost from the shoulders of the taxpayer. This is not an easy task, and there remains a highly emotional attachment to services that are available through personal delivery. This nostalgic attachment to receiving your personal letters, parcels at holiday times, and greetings and other holiday occasion cards should be maintained until such time as the demand for this service through Canada Post has ceased. In other words, until citizens have completely transitioned away from mailing cards or parcels or businesses have completely discontinued paper invoicing, advertising, and other services, home delivery must continue as an essential service.

If it is believed and accepted that all citizens, especially older citizens, have a right to essential services, and if it is recognized that home delivery is one of these essential services and that it must be delivered to the address of the recipient, then this service should not have to pay for itself. Do not look for the solution to be discontinuance of a service, but look to other ways to finance the service. If it is deemed an essential service, it becomes a service that is funded by the government, just like any other essential service, such as policing and fire services, health services, and so on. Some services, no matter how efficient one tries to make them, will always be in the red; then we have to simply accept this and move on without continuously charging the consumer for the service.

If the solution is to transition from physical mail delivery to online delivery, this will create more hardships than might be necessary. From the seniors' perspective, I have four points to make in that regard.

Many seniors do not have access to computers, and others are unwilling to enter personal information. A 2009 Statistics Canada study revealed that only 21% of individuals over the age of 75 were online. When CARP last polled our members, 70% indicated they were online, but half of those actually used computers that belonged to children or grandchildren.

Secondly, community mailboxes are not the answer. Besides being a community eyesore sometimes, they put the vulnerable at risk in two ways, as my colleagues have already indicated: in inclement conditions, the risk of a fall increases significantly, and even in good weather, the mailbox is a target for vandalism, as pension and other assistance cheques may be targeted by thieves, so security becomes an issue.

As well, just in case you're not aware, seniors have a tendency to get shorter as they get older. If your mailbox is on the top level, it's just impossible to reach the lock or to look inside your box to see what might be there for you to retrieve.

Relying on family members to pick up and deliver mail is not the answer. Senior persons are intensely private and wish to maintain their independence and dignity as long as possible. They prefer to keep their affairs to themselves, which is ensured when their personal mail is delivered directly to them. In addition, family members picking up and delivering mail also puts seniors at risk of financial abuse, as someone else will be collecting their cheques. Most recently, there's been an identification of problems with the locking mechanism on these mailboxes, to the extent that Canada Post is having to entertain certain excessive costs in order to replace those locks.

I have one last point to make, if I may. This has to do with the information in your discussion paper on Canada Post in the digital age. I offer a final point on the matter of the cost of running Canada Post by the federal government, which needs to consider all efficiencies. To a consumer, a post office is a post office, whether it's in a large corporate structure, a counter in a community drugstore, or a private room in a home in a very remote area. As long as the Canada Post sign is visible to the customer and personal service can be accessed more easily, take the actions that are needed for cost efficiencies to physical locations while still maintaining a service for seniors.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you.

We will go to Mr. Whalen for seven minutes, please.

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

I'd like to thank you all for coming. It's great to hear the different perspectives from mayors, from unions, from business, and certainly from your membership and all the organizations you represent.

It's interesting, because during the campaign we made a promise to save door-to-door delivery. We would do that by halting the installation of the community mailboxes and then consulting about the future of Canada Post. We don't feel bound by the task force study. They made a number of recommendations for cost savings, for revenue generation, but we don't feel bound by their constraints. We want to hear from Canadians and come up with our own opinions on what the future of Canada Post should look like to make our own recommendations to Parliament.

In this regard, there are some nuanced points. I'm hoping that each of you can help answer them.

Canada Post talks about five types of delivery: to the end of the laneway in rural areas, to a rural post office, to a community mailbox, to a centralized location in an apartment building, and then something that they call “door-to-door”.

Of those five things, which are acceptable to you? Do you consider to end of your laneway and to a box within your home just as good as door-to-door delivery? I'd love to hear quickly from all three of you.

[Sharron Callahan]

Home delivery is obviously at the top of the list of five. If I had to rank the five, I would then very quickly say community mailboxes. It's been my observance that community mailboxes are fairly close to the neighbourhoods, so they're not too far away from your home address, notwithstanding the other complexities. The end of the laneway would be my third-ranked one, I guess.

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

Okay.

[Emily Christy]

I agree: door to door is kind of the—

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

Do you consider door-to-door delivery to be the same as if you live in an apartment building, the centralized location—

[Emily Christy]

Yes—