Evidence of meeting #35 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was mail.
8:50 p.m.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
They may have consulted national organizations. Is it possible that it didn't stream down?
8:50 p.m.
Executive Director, Newfoundland and Labrador, Coalition of Persons with Disabilities
No. I asked.
8:55 p.m.
Chair, St. John's-Avalon Chapter, Canadian Association of Retired Persons
I'm actually not sure. It would be wrong for me to say yes when I'm not sure.
8:55 p.m.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
Fair enough.
You see, we're here to get creative ideas. We're not constrained by financial sustainability. I shouldn't say we're not constrained by it; we find solutions for it. We can't say, “Here is my problem, and my solution is cut, cut, cut.”
Here is a part of a problem. We need solutions for it. You came up with an interesting concept of postal banking. We've been listening to postal banking, and everybody created this brouhaha that postal banking may be terrible because you have to invest millions of dollars.
I did some research. Brazil has e-commerce banking. Its postal banking is e-commerce banking, and it is doing very well. I've just come back from India, and Narendra Modi wants to reach out and be inclusive. India has a huge rural population, so he has actually commanded his minister of finance to utilize the postal network to help get banking into rural communities.
Everybody has a smart phone, so my question is, do your seniors have smart phones or cellphones that would help them?
8:55 p.m.
Executive Director, Empower, The Disability Resource Centre
Persons with disabilities are usually on a fixed income and don't usually have a cellphone. If they have a cellphone, it's pay for service or it's only on data use and not on Wi-Fi.
8:55 p.m.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
That's the problem. Most of the developing countries have cellphones that are very cheap.
How about you, Ms. Christy?
8:55 p.m.
Executive Director, Newfoundland and Labrador, Coalition of Persons with Disabilities
I agree with Kimberly. Persons with disabilities have varying income levels. Some people have smart phones, and some people don't; some people are open to technology, and some people are not. Some people have the capacity to access some of these things, and some people don't have the technology that—
8:55 p.m.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
So it's a monetary constraint, really, because of the way we use our cellphones.
Ms. Callahan, would you comment?
8:55 p.m.
Chair, St. John's-Avalon Chapter, Canadian Association of Retired Persons
I would say exactly what my colleagues have said. One additional qualifier is that seniors do have cellphones because they are very concerned about being able to communicate with family and things like that. The two purposes, probably, for cellphones are the purpose of the telephone itself and just so that they can be contacted themselves, since the signal would give their location. However, in terms of all of the sophisticated applications—
8:55 p.m.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
Therefore, the question arises that if, say, in the remote areas where we would like to get microfinance, etc.... All the postal banks of Japan, Germany, France, and Italy all made money, and some of them had to sell shares—especially France, because it joined the EU and had to bring in competition. How would you then, logically, get your people...? If the banks came in, who would utilize it if we are going to e-commerce banking? That would be a problem. When you give us solutions, I guess we try to figure out what to do and how to manage it.
In terms of post offices, do your communities, collectively, use them as a community hub? Was there a post office that was being utilized? Mr. Ayoub talked about prioritizing. What sort of services would your communities use at a post office, for example?
8:55 p.m.
Executive Director, Empower, The Disability Resource Centre
I've always had a community mailbox. I've never known anything different, and it just happens to be right outside my house.
8:55 p.m.
Executive Director, Empower, The Disability Resource Centre
My parents have a community mail centre, which is a store, and they live in rural Newfoundland and Labrador. It's a hub. It's where they get their telephone book, their flyers, their mail. It's where the men get together and have chats over coffee in the morning.
8:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Ladies, thank you so much for your presentation here. I will say, as I mentioned to all of our panellists, that should you have other additional information you think would be of benefit to our committee members during our deliberations, please get that to our clerk directly and we'll make sure that it's incorporated into our final report.
Let me just once again say thank you. You were all wonderful panellists. We appreciate the information. We appreciate your directness.
The meeting is adjourned.