Government Operations Committee on Oct. 4th, 2016

[Danny Cavanagh]

Sorry, no, I don't, but my colleagues might be able to answer that question.

I want to add a bit to the conversation beforehand.

In Nova Scotia in particular, a lot of small rural communities have lost their banks. There is no bank there at all. What I believe we need to do is.... You have the report. It's been redacted to some extent. It talked about being a win-win.

I think what we really need to do is talk more about the human aspects of things. If it's a profitable business, let's figure out how we can kick doors open, not kick doors closed, and make things better for people in many of those rural communities.

I think it's a sad aspect when we just talk about the dollars and cents of it and we have arguments negative or positive. In most of the reports, the human side of things is virtually left out. In this province in particular, there are many communities that don't have any banking services whatsoever, and there are a lot of seniors in those communities.

[Scott Duvall, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Cavanagh, what I was trying to get at is that it could be that big banks didn't want to compete against Canada Post on the profits.

One of the things I noticed in the report is that it says about $400 million has been saved by going to community mailboxes. Wherever the savings are—and I'm not sure if that's through job losses or whatever—do any of you gentlemen know what the actual start-up costs were to put in these community mailboxes, the cost for the boxes, the maintenance costs?

[Jeffrey Callaghan]

I saw a report from Blacklock's this past week that said that Canada Post reported that it cost them about $210 million. We're not sure if that's the total cost or not. There are additional costs that have been downloaded to municipalities, because municipalities are now responsible for the clearing of the boxes and the lighting and some health and safety aspects.

[Scott Duvall, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

In my area of Hamilton Mountain, we established community mailboxes, and there was an outcry. Then the Liberals came in and put a moratorium on it.

Have you experienced in your areas any concerns that municipalities have about the downloading of responsibilities?

Mr. Callaghan, you spoke about street lighting, the road allowance permits that they don't have to pay for, graffiti, the garbage, the no-stopping signs. A lot of places have community mailboxes, and they were planned. What we're doing now is taking older sections of the cities and sticking them in anywhere. They're popping up like popcorn. There's a cost to this. Do you know if municipalities in your areas are concerned?

[Michael Keefe]

I do remember seeing a letter from the municipality of Yarmouth. It's not our municipality, but it's within the province. They were quite concerned about things like lighting and litter removal, because when most people open their mailbox and get junk mail, it goes in the garbage. If you're picking it up at a centralized location with no waste receptacles, it's going to go on the ground.

The municipalities do have concerns. Canada Post does a pretty good two-step to make them feel that they'll cover the costs, but they're very vague on the details.

[Scott Duvall, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Through you, Mr. Chair, to Mr. Callaghan, I believe you mentioned about the people with accessibility needs not being able to get their mail. I think you said that a doctor's note might get accommodation for delivery one day a week. Do you know what the cost is for a senior to go to the doctor and make an application to continue getting their mail?

[Jeffrey Callaghan]

No, but I've seen some reports of doctors charging up to $100 for a note to be provided to Canada Post for that. We think it's intrusive for people to have to prove that they're disabled and can't get their mail. For Canada Post to provide them mail delivery once a week as an alternative is shameful when their neighbours are getting delivery five days a week, even to a CMB. Because they're differently abled, to only be able to access their mail one day a week is not acceptable.

[Scott Duvall, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Do you know if the plan is for Canada Post to eliminate 100% of door-to-door delivery, or just in certain areas?

[Jeffrey Callaghan]

The five-point plan that Canada Post announced in December 2013 earmarked about five million total points of call across Canada to be eliminated, so virtually all door-to-door delivery outside of downtown business cores would be eliminated in the five-point plan. Hopefully it'll stop.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Do you have one more question?

[Scott Duvall, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Have you experienced, or have any of you known.... Since they have gone to the community mailboxes, of course there are fewer employees. I'm not sure whether they've been laid off or if it's through attrition. Maybe you can answer whether they left through attrition.

Have you experienced a great amount of overtime with other letter carriers since this has happened?

[Jeffrey Callaghan]

Yes, the average right across our region is that the loss of jobs is through attrition, and the routes, as Mr. Keefe said, have gotten longer, but people still have to finish them within their eight hours, so in places like St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, the overtime has gone through the roof. While jobs have been cut, the people who are there are working longer hours.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you.

We'll go now to Mr. Ayoub.

Mr. Ayoub, you have seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, gentlemen, for joining us today. Since the beginning of our cross-country tour, we've seen how valuable and important it is to hear from people at every stop along the way. Of course, that applies to Halifax.

Mr. Cavanaugh, our examination of Canada Post has to take two different philosophies into account. On the one hand, we're dealing with a corporation that's trying to turn a profit. On the other hand, even though we support its profitability, if that doesn't happen, the organization could potentially be subsidized since it is a crown corporation.

The five-point plan addresses attrition and the elimination of home mail delivery. You aren't the only ones to tell us that Canada Post is still profitable. A number of local and national unions have told us the same thing. The elimination of home mail delivery resulted in job losses and cost savings. The price of stamps also went up.

Do you have any figures, documentation, or statistics to show that the corporation would have continued to be profitable had it not implemented the first phase of its five-point plan?

[Danny Cavanagh]

I'm not sure. I don't have those numbers in front of me, so I don't know. Maybe Jeff can touch on that.

[Jeffrey Callaghan]

What I'd have to say to that is that while Canada Post has implemented CMB delivery across Canada to a million points of call, a lot of those workers are still there. While Canada Post was claiming that it was making millions of dollars in savings, a lot of those letter carriers are still there because of job protections under our collective agreements with Canada Post, so those savings weren't realized to their full extent, if I'm catching your point.

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

It would be worthwhile to see more figures on that. The independent task force appointed just prior to the summer put out a report, as did Ernst & Young.

Those studies estimate that Canada Post will incur net losses of $700 million by 2025-26. That brings us back to our initial dilemma. Do we subsidize a corporation providing what is considered a national service, or do we want the corporation to be profitable?

I have another question about the community mailboxes. Thirty percent of people still have home mail delivery, but no one else. Community mailboxes are located all over the country. Now we are hearing about mail being stolen. It's an important issue, one that really bothers me. Mail theft is something we've been hearing about in relation to newly installed community mailboxes, but was it ever a concern with the old community mailboxes? It's something I'd never heard of prior to the new mailboxes, and now we are hearing about it more. However, individual home mailboxes aren't locked either; anyone can access them. But, yes, it does take 78 home mailboxes to make up a single community mailbox.

To what extent was theft an issue before? Are you familiar with that?

[Michael Keefe]

Obviously, there has always been theft of mail. What you are asking—to see the figures for before and after—is one of the things I had asked for in my testimony.

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

That was for the newly implemented boxes. I'm talking about the old boxes.

[Michael Keefe]

Prior to the implementation, which began in 2014, CPC, through a freedom of information request, did an investigation in British Columbia, because British Columbia was the fastest-growing real estate market.

I'm going to refer to one of my exhibits.

There were 48,000 incidents of theft, vandalism, and arson in 130 communities between 2008 and 2013. Those are from the old boxes prior to the implementation of the five-point plan.

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

Thank you.

With all the hearings we've held, if the status quo had been an option, we wouldn't be here today. We wouldn't be having this discussion, and we'd already be restoring home delivery for the 32% of people who have it.

Do you think home mail delivery needs to be restored to the other 70% of people? Two types of service already exist. Should home delivery be restored for everyone or just those who've lost the service since 2014?

[Jeffrey Callaghan]

Canada Post's own figures about who gets home mail delivery and who doesn't go to Mr. Whalen's point about whether to consider getting mail to an apartment as home mail delivery. When people in rural Canada get mail delivered to rural mailboxes at the end of their driveways, is that considered home mail delivery? We think it is. Most people think it is. We're listening to Canadians talk to us as we deliver their mail, and they say that they want their home mail delivery restored, whether it be in an urban centres like Bedford, Lower Sackville, and parts of Halifax that have lost it, or whether it's rural Canada.

In 2008-2009, Canada Post started a project of removing thousands of rural roadside mailboxes, and people had to start driving to get their mail in rural Canada. We didn't have a big uproar over that. It seems that when they started doing it in major cities, we started hearing more noise generated across the country around that. Rural Canadians have had their home mail devastated for going on about 10 years. We think that should all be restored.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Than you very much

We'll go into our last two interventions. These will be five minutes each.

First will be Mr. McCauley.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Gentlemen, thank you for joining us today. It's beautiful in Halifax. Thanks for arranging that.

I'm going to bounce all over the place, if you don't mind.

Mr. Callaghan, you made a comment about switching to the CMBs, but you're saying the workers are still there as if there weren't any cuts. We heard earlier that the routes are getting a lot larger. I think Mr. Keith said the amount of work has doubled. One contradicts the other. Which is it?

[Jeffrey Callaghan]

It's not a contradiction. People have not been laid off. The cuts that Canada Post has made to jobs have mainly been through attrition, so as people retire—