Government Operations Committee on Oct. 4th, 2016

[Scott Duvall, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

I find that interesting.

In Hamilton, where I'm from, Canada Post went on the public record and said it was consulting with people across Canada when they were bringing in the CMBs. I know that on the exact day that they consulted me, it wasn't a consultation; it was information about what it was doing in my riding when I was a city councillor. That's the consultation we had.

The rest of it was just getting letters to my residents, asking them to fill them out. I mailed mine in that day, and Canada Post came to my office and told me what it was going to do. That was the consultation. It was more of a dictatorship. I will just leave it at that.

You picked up on people with mobility issues. According to the task force report, several associations representing people with reduced mobility do not believe that a person should have to provide proof of eligibility to continue their home mail delivery. Do you feel that persons with a mobility impairment seeking to maintain home delivery of mail service should be required to provide proof of eligibility? If so, and if there's a cost, who should pick up that cost?

[Lowell Cormier]

I think the question you're asking is whether disabled people who want to continue to have home delivery should have to validate that they are disabled. Was that the first part of the question?

[Scott Duvall, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Right.

[Lowell Cormier]

I can't see any reason why, if I were disabled, I wouldn't want to validate that, if it would enable me to receive home delivery.

My hearing is not great. What was the second part of the question?

[Scott Duvall, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

The second part was about the cost to validate it. When you make the application and there is an administration fee of $75 or $100, or maybe the doctor would charge that, who should be picking up that cost?

[Lowell Cormier]

Personally, I think the person who's disabled probably has enough challenges without having to pick up the cost for validating that they're disabled.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Mr. Clarke, what are your thoughts on that?

[Cecil Clarke]

Look, because we're in the municipal process, we're knocking on doors. Whether we like it not, there are more walkers coming to doors. There's more “Hang on a minute, let me get to the door.” There are more people trying to find ways....

We're trying to find ways. We're investing in a Handi-Trans service. We're working with our public transit buses. We're trying to buy new buses by working with federal-provincial programs so that we can connect people better for their services so they can go out and do these things. We're working with private taxi companies for accessible vans to allow people to be more connected.

There's a cost to that, but there's a public benefit because of it. When you look at the real crux to this issue, it's what the Government of Canada's view is of postal delivery. What value does it have to Canadians? If it has value, then what is the cost to maintain a consistent and valuable service that has merit in meeting its objectives?

In a country like Canada, in a province like Nova Scotia, this is going to be a challenge. If you ask people to validate what their issues are and bring in a doctor's note, I can tell you right now that you're going to be adding more bureaucrats to the process. You're not going to save a single dollar. The cost of an application is going to be far outweighed by the cost of the public administration process.

[Scott Duvall, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

My next question leads into that.

Canada Post has made the decision, and now we're going through the details of whether to continue with door-to-door service. If it doesn't continue and it goes to community mailboxes, Canada Post has a service that they provide. They charge you on the stamp, and they go through all their financial liabilities.

However, this is now putting some onus on the municipalities. Canada Post is now putting their mailboxes on the road allowance, which is not adequate for people with mobility devices. There could be a shortage of parking in that area, and parking spots may need to be taken away because people have to have access to the mailboxes. There's the cost for the no-stopping signs or the no-parking signs. There are the problems with the sidewalks, garbage, graffiti, lighting.

Who should be picking up that extra cost, which wasn't in the original plan, but now Canada Post has changed that plan?

[Lowell Cormier]

It shouldn't be the municipalities. We're challenged enough as it is in trying to provide infrastructure.

Without any consultation, they put mailboxes at the end of Mills Drive in Lingan. I was inundated with requests for lighting, which we hadn't budgeted for. It was a big hardship and it was very stressful for me to be dealing with these people requesting lighting from the municipality—and for good reason, because it was a nightmare there. It was really dark and there wasn't a lot of street lighting anyway.

We did make some allowances, because the road was underserviced anyway and at every second pole there is supposed to be a light. I made some creative gestures to our public works department and they accommodated this mailbox, but it could be a nightmare if this continues.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you.

Mr. Ayoub, you have seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Gentlemen, thank you for having us in your beautiful area. I already feel a connection with you, because I was a municipal councillor for ten years, and a mayor for six years in the Montreal region. I am now the federal member for that region.

I have also lost home mail delivery. My city was one of the five first cities in Canada to lose door-to-door delivery. In my region, 30% to 40% of residences already had community mailboxes. The others still had home delivery.

There is an election here. You are going door to door. This is a very good opportunity to meet with electors.

We hear a lot from people who are unhappy with change. Earlier, Mr. Clarke, you said that the status quo did not seem to be possible, despite the wish to maintain the service. No one gets up in the morning thinking that they will be losing a service, especially not the municipalities, because we know that everything lands on their doorstep eventually. I understand that if door-to-door service or post offices are lost, the municipality receives the calls, the mayor receives the calls, and councillors are put in the hot seat.

Mr. Clarke, let's take you as an example. You have a mailbox. How many times a week do you go to your mailbox?

[Lowell Cormier]

I would go to the post office maybe once every two weeks.

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

Do you receive your mail at home, Mr. Cormier?

[Lowell Cormier]

I receive home delivery, but there is a post office in my town.

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

I was looking for the answer because Mr. Clarke said he has a postbox.

Mr. Clarke, would you comment?

[Cecil Clarke]

I would be frequent yet infrequent, because of my schedule. The former presenter gives me my mail most of the time. That's when I go into the post office. My situation is a lot different from the average person's.

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

I receive my mail in a community mailbox and I go there once a week. I might even go once every two weeks if I'm not expecting anything in particular, aside from a few bills that are not delivered electronically.

We have seen a large drop in the volume of paper letters being delivered. We hear that we have to evolve and find solutions.

We hear about the silent majority. Is there a silent majority? In my neck of the woods, in my region, when people lost the service, they were not happy. Now that the service has been lost, I'm hearing something different. People tell me that after all, it is not such a big change. I am setting aside seniors and mobility-impaired persons, as for them the situation is different. They have a need and we must meet it, perhaps in a different way.

Do you think that the silent majority would accept new, different, door-to-door delivery services?

[Lowell Cormier]

If you're talking about the silent majority, I'm not quite sure they would. I'm only speculating, though. How would I know? I don't think they want to lose the service.

[Cecil Clarke]

I know on behalf of the Union of Nova Scotia Municipalities that the answer would be no, they wouldn't want to lose that service.

I'm a bit of an anomaly, because for 16 years I've chosen to pay to have a postal box, so I don't mind. I make that choice to invest in that flexibility. Other people don't have this need. I'm very fortunate to be able to make that choice versus other people who need the day-to-day service.

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

Let me speak about my personal experience. When we lost home mail delivery, in a way we also lost the post office, even though we had been guaranteed that we would not lose it. That was already unpleasant.

We even considered installing the post office at city hall or in the library. We wanted to make room for it somewhere. We did not want to lose it.

In your opinion, would solutions such as relocating the post office and other services at city hall, the public library or other municipal facilities be viable solutions in Cape Breton municipalities?

[Cecil Clarke]

When you look at the retail outlets in the community of North Sydney, you see that Shoppers Drug Mart is literally a few hundred feet away from the post office, so two alternate elements are in place.

When you talk about locations and you talk to workers within the postal service, it's not so much geographical. It's about being there to provide a service. Is it about these opportunities that public servants are providing being contracted out, versus where they would provide it? There would be efficiencies in having it in a town hall in a smaller municipality, but what I've heard is that people want the service and the jobs. That's of value.

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

How much time do I have? I have one or two more questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

You can perhaps ask just one.

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

It's going very fast.

We heard snow removal is your responsibility. In my experience, it is not the responsibility of a town. Canada Post was supposed to pay for it and was responsible for outsourcing it or for whatever solution they managed to find. Is it the same case here?