Good morning. My name is Michael Keefe, and I have been a postal workers since I first started as Christmas help in December 1983. I'm also the first vice-president of the Nova local of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, which represents 600 members working from Hubbards to Lake Charlotte.
I appreciate being invited to address the committee today.
As you may know, two communities in this municipality, Bedford and Lower Sackville, on October 20, 2014, were among the first wave across Canada to lost their home mail delivery. They were followed by Dartmouth and non-peninsula Halifax, in the summer and fall of 2015 respectively.
How has this affected the municipality, our customers, and the local?
According to Canada Post numbers, 45,574 addresses lost home mail delivery across the Halifax regional municipality. The municipality has lost 78 well-paying full-time jobs. Assuming the annual base salary of a full-time letter carrier without any overtime or additional allowances, that translates into $4.12 million of income that has been taken out of this municipality.
In addition, the installation of community mailboxes, or CMBs, has added traffic congestion to many neighbourhoods. Due in large part to the placement choices of some of the CMBs, there were two accidents within the first two weeks of the October 20 implementation of centralized delivery. A postal vehicle parked in front of a community mailbox site at a bus stop was side-swiped by a passing motorist. A week later, a bus backed into a CMB site located too close to an intersection and caused severe damage.
Our customers now have to face the increased risk of having their mail, their parcels, and their identities stolen. Whether it's in Portland Estates in Dartmouth or Hammonds Plains in Lucasville, thieves have targeted community mailboxes and will continue to do so. By breaking into one community mailbox unit, thieves have the potential to steal the mail from 10 to 16 addresses, which is much safer and easier for them than going to 10 to 16 individual mailboxes at 10 to 16 separate homes.
Our customers also now have to contend with trying to get their mail from a community mailbox that has a frozen lock, or ice on the ground, or snowbanks blocking their access. Senior citizens, the differently abled, and others with mobility issues and physical impairment have a new-found roadblock to their independence, as they are now required to get their mail up to three kilometres away from their homes.
The options that Canada Post has given them are fairly lacklustre: they will give them extra keys for family and friends; they will forward their mail to a nearby post office, family, or friend; and if if they can get a doctor's note, Canada Post will consider having the mail delivered to their homes one day per week.
In our local, due to the loss of 78 letter carrier positions, the centralized letter carrier routes have at least doubled, on average, the daily points of call. In Halifax LCD 1, which has centralized or community mailbox delivery, the points of call average for a full-time route is 1,512, while in LCD 2, which still has home mail delivery, the points of call average for a full-time route is 870.
You have fewer letter carriers delivering to more points of call. The additional workload for letter carriers results in longer days and later finish times. Take that fact, in addition to all postal workers constantly being told there have to be cutbacks in staffing and contractual concessions because Canada Post is losing money—while we continue to be profitable and Deepak Chopra and his senior management team continue to receive generous salaries and bonuses—and you have one very demoralized workforce.
I know I'm nearly at the end of my time, but if you'll indulge me, I have just one more paragraph in order to finish addressing you.
I would urge you to demand that Canada Post give this committee the statistics on mail theft for the three years before October 20, 2014, and compare them with the three years since CMB delivery was implemented to give you a true picture of the security of the mail in community mailboxes. I would also strongly urge this committee to get the full non-redacted report into postal banking from Canada Post before you decide that it wouldn't be a good fit for Canada. Postal banking could be the answer to all of Canada Post's problems and allow us to continue to provide the service that so many Canadians depend on and want.
Thank you. I would be happy to answer any questions.