Evidence of meeting #37 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was office.
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Conservative
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President, Union of Nova Scotia Municipalities
We don't have a provision for snow clearance.
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Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Thank you very much.
We're now going into our final two interventions, which will be five minutes each.
Mr. Kmiec, you're up first.
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Conservative
Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB
Thank you, gentlemen, for coming in. I hope you hit lots of doors. I knocked on probably about 14,000 or 16,000 doors last election, so I know how it goes. I used up a perfectly good pair of shoes as well.
Mr. Clarke, about the 20-year moratorium on the closure or franchising of rural post offices, what's happened over the past 20 years? I go into this subject because according to reports that we've just seen on the financial situation of Canada Post, over the next few years, until 2026, there will be a shortfall of $700 million. We have two options. It's either find new lines of services that Canada Post could get into—my preference is at minimal cost with the most uplift in revenue—or find a means of saving money somewhere.
We've repeatedly heard loud and clear in different communities that rural post offices are important to the local community. I understand that, but some local communities that are now considered rural include Brampton, Saskatoon, and Halifax. I think it would shock most people in a small community that Halifax or Brampton is considered rural.
Would your union of municipalities think it would be a good idea to move to a franchising model for some of these corporate post offices, and then take these cost savings and put them into maintaining rural post offices? Right now there are about 3,600, some of them in true rural communities, not in these areas that have grown to become urban.
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President, Union of Nova Scotia Municipalities
Each level of government has a general area of specialty and an understanding of where things can be done. As an example, the regional municipality here is now just in its 21st year; it was eight former municipal units that were forced together into one body, and there are three operation divisions. As an example, for snow clearing, two of those divisions have public works employees doing it. The one we're in right now has contracting companies doing it. Contracting service is actually not efficient, and we're looking at public provision of the service, so sometimes public employees provide greater value for money. We've actually contracted out in Sydney because that's the way it was, and the service levels are down compared to the other areas. You can see in a snowstorm that the east and north divisions have better service delivery just from the effectiveness of government being able to do something better. Therefore, I think we have to talk about whether government is in the business of providing a postal service or whether it is no longer a public service.
I fully agree with other lines of business, if you can find revenue streams. We all know that Canada Post is very efficient and very good at moving parcels effectively. We all know mail volume is down for the traditional letter coming in the mail. I mean, I don't race to my mailbox to look for a letter, but I do go to it for goods and transactions that are about living your life.
I guess the question really is at the federal level. The discussion among your colleagues needs to be about what postal service is. Is it more effectively done at one level or another? Here, as I say, we have to weigh out what public servants do better, and in the case of public works, they actually do baseline delivery better than the contracting community. When it comes to other projects, the contracting community is very effective at doing some of the work that we can't do in-house.
I just don't want to speculate on the federal jurisdictions.
7:40 p.m.
Conservative
Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB
What I'm getting at is this. A place like Halifax isn't considered rural, but your view is that it's worth maintaining the rural post offices in urban Halifax instead of changing to a franchising model whereby they would be at the local Sobeys or grocery store or Shoppers Drug Mart and then taking those savings and moving them in order to sustain rural post offices in Cape Breton.
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President, Union of Nova Scotia Municipalities
I think, in fairness, what the UNSM would do would be to have a discussion and have Halifax weigh in on what its interests are versus ours within the CBRM.
There are two urban centres in the province only, two cities. The 50 municipalities are trying to work together to have a collaboration in consistency, so I would defer to the Halifax council for what its opinion would be on that. I know our opinion here is based on a different reality from theirs, and it's reflected in the UNSM's position.
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Conservative
Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB
Mr. Cormier, can I get your thoughts on how you would...?
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Municipal Councillor, District 11, Cape Breton Regional Municipality
It would be very easy for me to sell out Halifax and tell you to do that, but that wouldn't be fair. I agree with Cecil's idea of consulting Halifax about its issues.
I understand where you're going—franchise in Halifax and typical Halifax-population-type cities and use the savings to help rural areas like Cape Breton—but I'd have to hear a lot more discussion and hear what the Halifaxans have to say about that.
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Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Thank you very much.
Our final intervention will come from Madam Ratansi. You have five minutes, please.
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Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
Thank you very much. I'll ask some questions and you could give me the answers.
Mr. Clarke, you say you represent 50 municipalities. What is the approximate size of each municipality, say, in terms of people? Do you have any idea?
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President, Union of Nova Scotia Municipalities
In fact, this is a dilemma we're going through. This was, as I said, eight former municipal units. Halifax was merging into a regional municipality. Queen's County volunteered to come together. The province is going through a process. We've lost. We were 54 municipalities a couple of years ago, but we're down to 50.
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President, Union of Nova Scotia Municipalities
There are other realities coming to bear, and regional government is going to be a new reality, because municipal units are not sustainable. As governments at the municipal level, there is no average municipal size—
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President, Union of Nova Scotia Municipalities
—but everyone's being stressed to get the job done.
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Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
The reason I asked was that I wanted to know if the post office acted as a hub for some of your remote areas. Does the post office act as a hub in terms of people gathering there?
Mr. Cormier, you said you go to the post office once in two weeks. Did you go to meet people, or did you want to canvass there? What is it that you used the post office for?
