Government Operations Committee on Oct. 6th, 2016

[Anne-Marie Gammon]

It was loud and clear. I know that our mayor, the mayor of Bathurst, who made a presentation, wanted to make sure that we saved door-to-door delivery. Bathurst was one of the first communities that accepted that.

If I were to go back, I was a municipal councillor at that time and I was vocal. I was at the presentations by the labour movement and whatnot. I thought door-to-door delivery should be kept. I think that's a very important service. Since we had—

[Scott Duvall, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

That's what you heard. That's what I'm getting at.

Mr. Bélanger.

[Jean-Luc Bélanger]

That is what we heard during the election campaign. Was it implied or did we misunderstand? During the election campaign, the current government said that it would maintain door-to-door delivery where it was still being provided. That did not mean that it would restore it where there wasn't any. There is a nuance there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

I appreciate that.

We have Madam Ratansi for seven minutes, please.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you both for coming. You're bringing quite an interesting perspective.

Madam Gammon, why did you stop or not want door-to-door delivery to your own house?

[Anne-Marie Gammon]

When we moved to Janeville there was very little or no door to door. You had to go to a community mailbox and the community mailbox was on the way home. So every night, every second night, every third night, whatever we decided, we'd pick up the mail. We were used to that.

When we moved to where we are now.... We moved to Bridge Street and there wasn't that much community door to door. There were community mailboxes, so it was normal for us to do that.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Okay, thank you very much.

Mr. Bélanger, I am going to speak English because my French isn't very good.

You say that your understanding of the platform is that door to door to those communities that already had door to door will be restored. We would put a moratorium on community mailboxes and then we would move to this consultation, which will result in whatever. Is that correct?

[Jean-Luc Bélanger]

That is what I had understood.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Fine.

Madam Gammon, you talked about a holistic approach to Canada Post. That's quite interesting. You were given a choice of comparison to some provincial jurisdictional issues, i.e., do you fund Canada Post at the same level as public health, etc.

I'd like to look at it as a crown corporation. Canada Post is a crown corporation, like CBC, CN Rail, CDIC, etc. There are many crown corporations. We need a crown corporation to be self-sustaining. If you were to look forward and see how one makes a whole approach to Canada Post, what would your suggestions be? At the moment, just to clarify, we looked at a very tight quantitative financial analysis. You talked about the holistic approach, so you're talking beyond numbers. What would you suggest Canada Post do?

[Anne-Marie Gammon]

I think other services like certain types of banking services could be done by Canada Post so that it could increase its revenue. I think there are other ways also. I'm not too sure that all of this—like for us, it's a Jean Coutu—is good a way. Not everybody lives around Jean Coutu, so how do you go? Jean Coutu is not easier to access than it is to go downtown.

We need to look at Canada Post as a service. When Canada became a country 150 years ago, post was one of the important things, as well as rail, so that people could communicate right across Canada—

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

That's your national symbol.

Now we're moving forward. Our 150th birthday is going to take place next year. What should we do?

Monsieur Bélanger, you talked about services that used to be provided. I think you must have been here when they talked about fishing licences and passports. Have any of you used the services like MoneyGram at Canada Post?

[Anne-Marie Gammon]

No, I haven't used MoneyGram. We hosted an international student from Italy and her parents sent her money through MoneyGram on a regular basis.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

That was from Canada Post?

[Anne-Marie Gammon]

Yes.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Oh, okay. That's perfect.

In Scotland and Ireland the postal system is used for travel insurance, money exchange, passport applications. If those types of services were to be given, do you think your communities would be able to use them, and how many would use them?

[Anne-Marie Gammon]

Definitely. The people who travel.... Right now, we're thinking of going to St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Where do you get travel insurance? I really do think the people who would use it are the people who travel a lot, the people who do a lot of transactions, and definitely people who are in a lower income bracket.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

They would use it for what?

[Anne-Marie Gammon]

They would use it to mail, to receive their cheques, and to mail little things. They wouldn't necessarily be doing a passport, and they wouldn't necessarily be buying insurance to travel and whatnot, but other people who are middle class and up would certainly use it.

I know that before we used to be able to go to our MP's office and our passport would be all done. Now it doesn't work that way.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Monsieur Bélanger.

[Jean-Luc Bélanger]

I think that any other banking service or service provided to consumers would have to not be too expensive; prices would have to be competitive. A lot of businesses work in this sector already. Banks, insurance agencies, and others are active in these markets. For Canada Post to be able to offer some of these additional services for the purpose of generating more revenue, it would have to be competitive in these areas. Otherwise, how will the rural area have access to the service?

Like Ms. Gammon, I have been to different places. I went to a small community in France. The post office was really the nerve centre of the town. The village was called Saint-Restitut. It was quite close to Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux. My niece lives in that village.

The post office had everything, it was it the centre of the community's activities. In addition to postal services, there were all of the economic elements, messages, exchanges.

The postman went around with his car in the morning—the village has a population of about 500 residents—and he distributed everything to the homes, just as it has always been done. It depends on the system of services.

You have to examine the value added. Of course since Canada Post is a crown corporation, it has to be profitable. For any enterprise, that is fundamental.

I always come back to the idea of making the transition in the context of a short-term five-year or ten-year plan. These things have to be done together, and you have to see how the additional services could be added and generate additional revenues. How could certain services be offered differently, in the course of a transition? Mail delivery could be cut one day a week. In the context of a transition that might be acceptable, but if the service were reduced by two or three days all at once, it would be less acceptable.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Merci beaucoup.

Mr. McCauley, for five minutes, please.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you very much.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Thank you for joining us today. I mentioned earlier to the mayor what a beautiful community you have, so thanks for having us here.

I want to chat quickly about service to seniors. There are some who are well aged and who are still very mobile, but we'll discuss the ones that are not quite as mobile.

One of the services Canada Post has, and Mr. Duvall mentioned, is that they will do five-day delivery to the mailboxes, and then once a week they will clear out the entire mailbox and bring it to the house.

Are you aware of that, and do you think that's a viable solution for those who are disabled or elderly, and who are not able to get to a mailbox?

[Anne-Marie Gammon]

It's very difficult for seniors, and they have some very grave concerns. If they are waiting for their cheque or other important mail and do not receive it, it's a source of anxiety.

Delivering mail one day a week may not be such a bad thing, but I don't think it is positive. You have to think about value added; it is important, as the lady has just said. It is very important. Canada Post should work on that and keep its employees.

We should not forget either that Canada Post is a service that is provided to the population. It is no different from health or education. We have to pay for all of these services, that is the way it is.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

That's a good point to bring up. You said it is a service, but it is a service mandated to cover itself, and that's what we're running into. When we see reports, one of them shows, as my colleague mentioned, a loss of three-quarters of a billion dollars in the next nine years. Another report says that's a very conservative loss and it could be $1 billion. We're faced with the question of whether we pay higher taxes, do we take $1 billion from health care services to cover that, or do we make changes? That is why we're doing this. You brought some very good things up.

Mr. Bélanger, you talked about your trip to France. We actually have it very similar in Alberta where a lot of the government services are done through that. You can get your driver's licence, health care, everything, but it's been done through a mass privatized system, so these stores are within blocks of each other. There are more of them than there are liquor stores, and they provide services 7 a.m. to midnight. It's quite fascinating.

One of the things that we've seen with the growth in a lot of our communities, Edmonton being one, is adding 100,000 or 200,000 people to a region. It's grown so vastly that what used to be a rural post office is now inside a big city. Canada Post has about 500 of them that are rural but inside a big city. They've moved a lot of these mailboxes to pharmacies, as you mentioned.

Would you consider that being a viable solution? Should we transition these into pharmacies, etc., and use the money saved so that we can continue serving the true rural post offices? Basically, the money saved would be used to subsidize or continue with the good services in the true rural areas.