Government Operations Committee on Oct. 4th, 2016

[Dr. Thomas Kozloski]

I don't think we have any way to determine that, or where they're ending up. We're concerned that some have suggested that community mailboxes result in a slower or less productive response to these kinds of mailings, but I don't think we know if something is delivered to a door or to a community mailbox, for instance.

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

Have you done any analysis to establish where the addresses are that we know are going door to door?

[Dr. Thomas Kozloski]

No, we have not.

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

Okay.

Do you pay a differential rate when you have personalized mail that's delivered to community mailboxes versus directly to the door, or do you pay the same rate for this type of a product?

[Dr. Thomas Kozloski]

I apologize, but I don't know the answer to that question. I really don't.

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

Okay.

Do you find that it's cost-effective and it's worthwhile and important to your organization that this service be maintained?

[Dr. Thomas Kozloski]

That Canada Post continues to be a viable entity and accessible to all, whether it's through reasonable compromises with community mailboxes or direct home delivery or whatever, is very important to us. We want Canada Post to continue to be a viable, accessible public service.

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

Mr. Brigley, in addition to the payday loan types of banking services that you've talked about and that we've heard about from others, are there other types of banking services that ACORN would propose that Canada Post engage in?

[Jonethan Brigley]

Definitely. If Canada Post got into banking, one thing they could try to provide is a lower interest rate when it comes to specific bank accounts and things like that.

Nowadays, if a person wants to open up a bank account, one thing that hits them is that sometimes there are hidden fees or taxes on fees, depending how much you use the bank. There are also steadily increasing fees when you use at an ATM or go into the bank to withdraw money.

One thing postal banking could do is offer cheaper, more competitive rates for a community user to come in and use their ATM or a bank service.

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

You talked about 20% as being an appropriate interest rate. When I look at some credit cards, they charge more than that, and I see payday loans as being at the highest end of risky loans for the retail market. I wouldn't want those types of rates to be less than another type of available product that low-income people have access to, because it's the highest-risk loan.

Does your organization promote a particular rate you have used? Do you have views on what the maximum rates should be for other credit cards and whatnot?

[Jonethan Brigley]

From what I've been hearing, as you said, payday loans do have a very high interest rate of up to 572%. Of course, when I acquired my own Acura Visa, I had one that was on the market price, and it fluctuated up to 5%. It was insanely good, on my part, but that was a special. I've seen credit cards that have insane rates.

I would say that if a postal bank awarded a credit card, the interest rates should be more in the low competitive range, at least by a half of payday loans if not lower, due to the fact that payday loans are focused on mostly acquiring that interest rate back from people. They definitely think it's because they focus on the lower-income people that they can have high interest rates.

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

Okay. Thank you.

Ms. Corbin, maybe one of the few elements of testimony that the union and the corporation have agreed upon is that they don't view alternate-day delivery as an appropriate model, because they've already determined, within the organizational structure and the operational infrastructure on how the mail is delivered, that they only want mail delivered to your home when you have mail, and slightly fewer than one-half the homes would actually receive mail on any given day. The ability to deliver every day is important for other lines of business, such as the direct-mail marketing campaigns, the charities, and parcel delivery. As users, they might only see alternate-day delivery as the end effect, but the ability to deliver every day is important. That's been some of our testimony.

Knowing that, would that change your view on whether you feel that alternate-day delivery is important, or do you feel that adding an extra day on to the cost of mail to save $74 million is an appropriate stance?

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Give a very brief answer, please. We're basically out of time now.

[Anne Corbin]

From my own personal experience, I get flyers every day. There might be some impracticality there, but surely there's a solution that would allow.... I don't think people need flyers every day, or parcels. It seems that most people would accept every-other-day delivery, but it sounds from what you're saying that they won't.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

The next intervenor is Mr. McCauley. You have seven minutes.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Thanks to everyone for joining us today.

I'm just going to bounce back and forth.

Mr. Kozloski, thanks for everything you're doing. It sounds like a wonderful program

Mr. Whalen stole one of my questions. I was wondering if you did have any feedback. Maybe if you're able to gather some and email it in later, it would be wonderful to see.

On the mail that you send out, I'm curious. Is it addressed mail or is it just a blank envelope?

[Dr. Thomas Kozloski]

We use a third party to do that, and I'm not sure exactly how that's connected. Again, we rely heavily on mass mailings through Canada Post.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

That leads me to my second question.

One of the things that we've heard in some of the polling that's been done is that Canadians appreciate Canada Post, but they do not want to see higher taxes to subsidize it and they don't want to see higher stamp prices. I know that was brought up.

How would it affect you if stamp prices were increased? I'm going to assume that you're not in favour—

[Dr. Thomas Kozloski]

I think that's a good assumption.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

—of financing that, or of a big bump in stamp prices to offset it.

[Dr. Thomas Kozloski]

As I mentioned, we really don't have anybody to pass that cost to. That would come out of our cost structure and it would decrease our ability to.... Fundraising is difficult enough, and that would just take away from amounts that were fundraised and impact our ability to conduct our mission. Yes, that would be a concern of ours.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Great. Thanks very much. Thank you, again, for everything you're doing.

Ms. Corbin, thanks for being here. I have a bit of a background in senior care as well, so I certainly appreciate what you and Mr. LaRusic are doing.

One of the things we did hear from Canpar for the last couple of weeks is access for seniors to the community mailboxes after there's been a change. A fair amount of my community already have community mailboxes, and they're just going to deal with it one way or the other.

Canada Post does have a system set up whereby they will deliver it to the mailbox, and then once a week collect it and deliver it to a senior's home or a disabled person's home or to someone with mobility issues.

Do you see a once-a-week delivery as acceptable?

[Anne Corbin]

No, because that's putting the onus on the senior or the disabled person to make a special request. It stigmatizes them further.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

The reason I ask is to get feedback like that. In a lot of our ridings, sometimes the entire area is already on community mailboxes, and we might have 5,000 to 10,000 seniors affected who are already doing it once a week.

[Anne Corbin]

Yes, and—