Thank you. Good morning.
On behalf of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, I'm grateful for the opportunity to appear before the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates.
My name is Jeff Callaghan. I'm currently the national director for Atlantic Canada of the Canadian Postal Workers, a position I've held since 2008. I've been employed with Canada Post since 1985.
Although our union's regional office is located here in Halifax, one of eight regional offices across the country, we represent over 3,100 members here in Atlantic Canada: workers, letter carriers, mail service couriers, postal clerks, dispatchers, technicians, rural and suburban carriers, and retail clerks. Our members work in a variety of locations, in hundreds of Atlantic communities, in large urban postal plants and small rural post offices.
During recent years as a national director, I've witnessed first-hand the number of initiatives undertaken by Canada Post which have had largely negative impacts on both the public's ability to access postal services in their communities and the very viability of the crown corporation itself. Despite public opposition, when informed, Canada Post has consistently plowed through with these initiatives without achieving any significant benefits whatsoever.
For instance, beginning in January of 2013—there's a document and hopefully you'll be able to follow—Canada Post began to change the manner in which it processed local mail in communities across Canada, including here in Atlantic Canada.
Previous to these changes, mail was sorted and delivered in the communities where the mail originated. Now mail is collected in those communities and placed on trucks and transported to mechanized facilities for processing and then returned to the original post office for delivery. In Atlantic Canada, this replaced St. John, New Brunswick; Halifax, Nova Scotia; and Saint John's, Newfoundland and Labrador. In 2008, Canada Post invested huge sums in new letter sorting machines, even though first class letter mail volumes had been in decline worldwide for several years.
For customers who rely on Canada Post for the safe delivery of their mail in an expeditious manner, mail which had previously been delivered the next business day is now taking upwards of four to 10 business days to be delivered, depending on weather and road conditions. Although Canada Post has stated it still meets on-time delivery standards, workers and customers alike realize it's simply not true. Customers soon began looking for alternatives.
For example, a letter mailed in Edmundston, New Brunswick, which is destined for an Edmundston address, is now collected at the end of the business day and transported over 400 kilometres to St. John, New Brunswick, for processing and then returned 400 kilometres for delivery. The 800-kilometre round trip adds days to the delivery time, does little to instill customer satisfaction, and increases the corporation's environmental footprint.
Sadly, this initiative has not been a one-off for Canada Post. During the same period of time, Canada Post has embarked on a concerted effort to remove hundreds of street letter boxes from communities across Atlantic Canada. Street letter boxes are red boxes located throughout communities for the public and a great many small and medium-sized businesses to deposit their mail. Without community red boxes to use, customers are left with few options but to travel to a post office to do their mailing, and for small and medium-sized businesses, they're forced to either pay for a pickup or make other costly alternate arrangements.
Canada Post has also made going to a commercial post office less convenient. Despite the moratorium on postal closures, Canada Post continues to close rural post offices and relocate some retail operations in larger urban centres, from convenient downtown business cores to less convenient and much less accessible business parks. Many members of the public, including seniors and disabled residents and downtown businesses, are no longer able to walk or travel to the post office to do their mailing. In communities such as Truro, Nova Scotia, and Corner Brook, Newfoundland and Labrador, the post office was relocated to a business park several kilometres from the downtown core. After the moves, Canada Post then used the excuse of declining revenues at the new post offices to further implement reduction of hours of operation to the public and proceeded to cut staff.
Despite the negative initiatives, and not to mention the quarter of a billion dollars reportedly spent by Canada Post to eliminate home mail delivery to almost a million Canadian households and small businesses, Canada Post continues to be a successful crown corporation. Again, Canada Post reported a $45-million profit in the first six months of 2016.
Atlantic Canadians expect more from their post office than cutbacks and reductions. Instead of making the service less accessible and less relevant to Canadians, our post office should be expanded to deliver more services, particularly in rural Canada.
Postal workers are extremely proud of the service we provide, but we need a government that is just as proud of this important public service and will do everything in its power to enhance, promote, and support our public postal service.
Implementing new and innovative services such as postal banking and community elder care and restoring unpopular and unnecessary cuts such as those made to urban and rural home mail delivery would ensure that Canada Post continues to be in a sound position to fulfill its obligation and commitment to all Canadians.
Thank you very much.