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.