Thank you. Bear with me, I'm a little nervous. I will be reading my speech.
Good morning and thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today about a topic that is very near and dear to my heart: our public post office. First, I'd like to say I'm not a banker or an accountant, nor a politician or a lawyer, and I don't hold a business degree, so please don't expect me to have all the answers here today.
What I am is a postal worker and I'm proud of it. One of my strengths is common sense, something that seems to be in short supply these days. I've been a postal worker for 30 years and I've seen many changes in the postal service over the years. I am here today to tell you a little bit of what I've experienced and seen over that span of time.
It seems someone, whether it was a group or an individual is unknown, decided that Canada Post either shouldn't exist or shouldn't exist as a crown corporation, and then it began. At first there was a gradual decline in services, the opening of private retail outlets, and the centralization of sortation centres which increased the time for mail to move from point A to point B. Also, there was reckless spending, like the forking out of billions of dollars for high-speed, automated sorting machines, when the first-class mail was already beginning its decline. They cut retail hours and sometimes completely closed rural post offices, where in some locations it was the only face of government left in the community. As well, there was the spending of hundreds of thousands of dollars on reducing the size of public retail areas of small-town urban post offices, making them as unfriendly and uncomfortable as possible for customers. Actually, one of our residents asked me one day why Canada Post seems to hate its customers. She said that when she complained to someone in management, the response she received was that she should go to Jean Coutu for her postal needs.
Thank goodness she hasn't let that stop her and continues to bring her business to the local post office, even though she says it makes her angry to see the postal worker in a box, or what is left of our retail counter.
Last but not least is the latest development, the loss of door-to-door delivery in the city. In a northern New Brunswick community with an aging demographic and some pretty harsh weather conditions, we now have a high number of seniors risking hips and ankles, slipping and sliding down our streets to their community mailbox, and hoping their mail compartment won't be frozen solid when they get there.
Speaking of winter, residents of Bathurst were informed by mail last week—and I have my own letter here with me today—that Canada Post is replacing every single community mailbox lock in the next couple of months due to the high number of complaints about locks freezing last winter. The Acadie-Bathurst local has requested a cost on this from both management and our MP, but to date have not received an answer to either request.
Despite all of this, Canada Post in the last 17 years has had net cumulative profits of $2.18 billion, has paid $589 million to the government in the form of dividends, and paid $537 million in taxes. As I said earlier, I'm not an accountant, but these numbers don't seem to add up to the projected loss that Canada Post keeps talking about in the media. From what I understand, just in the last quarter, there was a profit of around $44 million before taxes.
Just imagine what we could do if we had an agenda to save the post office rather than squander away its resources. The discussion paper and online survey released last week seemed to focus on cuts and rate hikes, and closing post offices and opening more franchises, which to me is the same as privatization. I was disappointed to see that there was little to no consideration for revenue-adding services proposed by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, with the proposal of banking being dismissed almost completely.
Would any of these ideas work? I'm not the expert, but a discredited idea never works. I know that a corporation that continues to squander money and send paying customers elsewhere has no chance of survival. Why is Canada Post so set on self-destruction?
It doesn't take a lot of common sense to know that we need to adapt and grow to survive. If we're seeing this type of irresponsible mismanagement in our public postal service happening in a small town like Bathurst, I can understand why it looks like Canada Post is in serious trouble.
This Liberal government needs to stop the demolition of Canada Post and find a leader who will stop treating postal workers as the enemy, and work together with us and the public to develop and expand services and create a public postal service that will completely meet the needs of all Canadians in our cities, towns, and communities. Our post office does need to change, but let's work to make it better, not cause its downfall.
Thank you.