Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Colleagues, I want to start by asking each of you with a device in front of you to please Google “2015 Liberal Party platform”. If you do that, right at the very top you'll see the PDF with the Liberal Party platform.
Once you have that, I would ask you to go to page 34. You'll see, in red, “Canada Post”, and then, in bold print, “We will save home mail delivery.”
Welcome to Charlottetown, folks, the birthplace of Confederation and a riding where 100% of the people do not have home mail delivery. Charlottetown became a riding where 100% of the people do not have home mail delivery six days after the Liberals won the election. During those six days, there was a full-out effort by Canada Post to pop up these community mailboxes. They popped up like dandelions all over the place. People were working overtime to ensure that it would happen.
At the end of this process that you're presently engaged in, you'll be making recommendations to government. Given what you are reading on page 34, we're not talking about “whether” to save home mail delivery but “how”. It's for you to decide how home mail delivery will be saved.
When you do, I would ask that you bear in mind what the situation was in this country on October 19, not six days later, because if you decide that we're frozen as of the date of the moratorium six days after the election, you will have validated a defiant, arrogant action on the part of Canada Post that betrayed the voters in this riding, 84% of whom voted for parties that were in favour of saving home mail delivery.
Section 22 of the Canada Post Corporation Act and of course the charter make some allowances for government to provide direction to Canada Post. True, as a crown corporation, there is some degree of separation. But whether it be through legislation, through policy, or through a face-to-face meeting between the minister and senior officials of Canada Post, I would ask that you include in your recommendations something that ensures that this does not happen again—ensures that Canada Post is not allowed to thumb its nose at the government as it did in the six days following the election.
Thank you for listening. Thank you for coming to Charlottetown. Good luck with your deliberations. Enjoy your time in our fair city.