You have one minute.
Evidence of meeting #38 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 business.
Evidence of meeting #38 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 business.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
Tom Kmiec Conservative Calgary Shepard, AB
If Canada Post, seniors organizations, and local municipalities got together, sat down, and planned out where the community mailboxes would be, and agreed to the lighting and how the boxes were going to be cleared of snow and ice; put in recycling bins for the flyers; and perhaps covered them with roofs, like they did in Douglas Glen in Calgary, so you could actually get there and it would be pretty darn clean, would that be a solution that even groups such as yours would support or participate in?
12:40 p.m.
Executive Director, The PEI Council of People with Disabilities
If that's the recommendation by this committee and that's how you've decided to move forward, that would be a process we would be committed to and participate in. Do we see that as the right solution? Absolutely not.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Madam Ratansi, this is our last intervention, for five minutes, please.
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
Thank you, both, for being here. Do you know the poverty rate or the unemployment rate in Charlottetown?
12:40 p.m.
Executive Director, The PEI Council of People with Disabilities
I don't know that. I know that people with disabilities who live in this province are 50% more likely to be underemployed or unemployed, and we have 20,000 people with disabilities.
12:40 p.m.
Executive Director, The PEI Council of People with Disabilities
It's 140,000.
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
Okay, so that's nearly one-fifth.
In terms of door-to-door delivery, do most of the people with disabilities live in a building, or do they get mail delivered at their door or down the driveway?
12:40 p.m.
Executive Director, The PEI Council of People with Disabilities
People with disabilities on Prince Edward Island are just like you and me. They live in a variety of different situations.
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
Okay, fair enough.
Mr. Casey, I am very surprised to hear that Canada Post was so arrogant in installing the community mailboxes.
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
I am, because we thought we were working in good faith with them. Why did management become so arrogant, thinking they could thumb their noses at the government?
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
Sean Casey Liberal Charlottetown, PE
I don't know. As I say, I think they have some explaining to do.
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
Okay, so when we speak to Canada Post next time, that's the question we might ask them.
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
Is it because his contract was renewed, and he thought he could get away with it because nobody was going to fire him?
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
Sean Casey Liberal Charlottetown, PE
I don't know the president, and even if I did, I'm sure I couldn't get inside his head.
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
As a committee, we are coming up with different recommendations or will come up with recommendations, and we hope they will not be political but be based on fact. We look at the quantitative analysis that Canada Post and the task force have looked at, and we think fine, they are saying it's not financially sustainable, blah, blah, blah, and everybody is challenging it. Therefore, the premise of their calculations may be different if you look at it differently. If we come up with a different solution, do you think that under the current management they will be able to implement it, or if they might thumb their noses at us?
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Sean Casey Liberal Charlottetown, PE
That's extremely difficult to predict, but I'll repeat what I said earlier. After what we witnessed and experienced here in the six days following the election, I have no faith in the leadership of Canada Post.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
Labour unions have been telling us that they've come up with creative ideas and nobody wants to listen to them. We have been trying to gauge whether there is a midpoint between labour and management to come up with a solution moving forward. We need to balance not only quantitative or financial stability, but also qualitative factors, because we need to create jobs and move forward. What are some of the options that Canada Post can utilize to reinvent itself, to be sustainable, with all the positives and opportunities? Yes, it has some challenges with some of the opportunities. Do you have any thoughts?
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Sean Casey Liberal Charlottetown, PE
Well, first of all, I would say that I'm not sure if I'm the best person to respond to that. I think very good work has been done by the task force, which should guide your thinking, as well as the work you're doing in calling witnesses before the committee.
What I would say is that I think it's important to step back and see the forest, to acknowledge right up front that this isn't a private corporation. It doesn't, and shouldn't, have a profit motive. It's a public service. The question is, how much do we want to pay for that public service and what are the trade-offs to get the level of service that we want?
I do think you're going to get better advice from other sources as to how to deliver that, but I think the philosophical question about the role of Canada Post is fundamental and that the answer to that is that it isn't profit-motivated, and it shouldn't be a profit-motivated, quasi-private corporation.