Government Operations Committee on Oct. 6th, 2016

[Paolo Fongemie]

It should go to Canada Post. The target audience with those issues have limited revenues or fixed revenues, and everything is going up. I think it's an essential service.

Having said that, the once-a-week pickup would create issues for the elderly, with the medical appointments they may get through the mail. It might be a week, and you'd miss your appointment.

It is a service to all of the population. Different age groups have different services. In a community like ours, where the population is aging and where there are disabilities, there should be a service that's provided adequately for them.

[Scott Duvall, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

My last question is for Ms. Anderson.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Could you make it a brief question?

[Scott Duvall, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Okay.

Do you have any idea of how much it has cost so far to start up the community mailboxes? What is the actual cost for them?

[Amy Anderson]

So far it's been $210 million.

[Scott Duvall, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

That's $210 million to date, just for the ones that have been implemented.

[Amy Anderson]

To date, yes, and there's still a lot more to do, if it continues.

[Scott Duvall, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Mr. Whalen, you have seven minutes, please.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Yes, I'm going to pass my time to Ms. Ratansi.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Madam Ratansi, you have seven minutes, please.

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

Thank you all for being here. Thank you for your perspective. It's quite interesting.

We are here to listen to your views because we need to move Canada Post into the 21st century. I listened to the quantitative analysis on its financial sustainability in the future, 10 years from now or 20 years from now. I know there are questions about whether or not it's financially sustainable, and we have to look at the figures with Ernst and Young, the task force, etc.

From a qualitative perspective, you've talked about issues around life, people needing their jobs, etc.

Mayor Fongemie, you mentioned that they are federal buildings. How would you propose to use those federal buildings, and how does that impact on Canada Post?

[Paolo Fongemie]

I think the advantage right now is all the outlets we have in Canada in the rural communities. It's a great network. Adding the service of postal banking is one, and how we can work more closely with our other federal departments, or even provincial departments, to provide certain services to all our citizens without added cost. Canada Post is working in a silo and other departments are working in silos, and there are no efficiencies, so how can we work closely and provide maybe new services to our population without increasing any costs?

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

That's good. If you have some ideas, we would love to have them. In this short seven minutes, it's very difficult to get a very critical analysis of these things. We do want the middle class to increase.

Mayor Atkinson, we do want remote areas to be healthy and prosperous, because Canadians generally live near the border and we have empty land we could fill. But if we want to fill it, we have to provide opportunities.

I have a question. You know banks are totally profit driven. Do you think Canada Post should be profit driven, self-sustaining, or subsidized?

[Carson Atkinson]

Well, initially I said subsidized in terms of some of the initial costs, but it should be self-sustaining over a long period of time. You have to look at other private agencies that are making money and providing the kinds of services that Canada Post could provide. You have to ask why they can do it more efficiently than Canada Post. That's the basic question.

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

Do you have any ideas of how Canada Post could be more efficient, more self-sustaining? At the moment the focus is on, as Ms. Anderson has said, cutting services and investing in large technological warehouses, despite the fact that the market trend was against mail delivery. I think it's made some strategic investments, which have not given the return on investment that they're supposed to get.

As a mayor, the closing down of a bank like Scotiabank and probably reopening, how does it affect Irving, your biggest employer?

[Carson Atkinson]

In a lot of cases the people coming from the mill very frequently will use the banks, stop in and use the services as they're leaving a shift in the morning. There are three different shifts. Basically in the circumstances these people are accessing it, and if they can't do it there, in some cases they can't get access because if they go north they won't be able to access it that way, if they go east there's no bank, and if they go south it's 45 miles to Sussex.

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

Therefore, the inconvenience might just draw the business out of there?

[Carson Atkinson]

That's correct.

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

In terms of the postal banking, I guess the Canadian postal workers union has given us some analysis of successes in banks. What sort of service would you want, complicated services? The reason I say that is that other countries have used e-commerce and e-banking, making it more efficient for people to use it. What would you suggest? Do you want full service mortgage and things like that?

[Carson Atkinson]

No, definitely not. I don't think they can compete on that kind of basis. I think they can compete with the basic things, for example, a solid, safe place for a night depository for businesses. Those are pretty simple kinds of things. The pick-up comes. Armoured trucks are coming through the community anyway. It's not a big deal in terms of that. I mean there could be basic services to open an account for seniors, particularly seniors who don't get out much. It gives them the access through Canada Post, a very simple kind of thing. I'm only looking at a small group of these, because with this electronic development you know everybody shops for their mortgage rates online. We're not into that kind of thing, no.

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

Perfect.

I have a minute or two left, so I'd like to ask Ms. Anderson a question.

There have been challenges that Canada Post employees are not probably well equipped to do banking. Do you have an idea of what you could offer as an employee to the banking service?

[Amy Anderson]

The union has actually done quite a large study on postal banking and the different types of banking services that we could offer in different communities in different areas. We have the infrastructure. We have the employees.

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

That's MoneyGrams, Visa, and bills, or whatever.

[Amy Anderson]

Yes, there would be some training involved, and there would be a set-up cost. We understand that, but it would also be a money earner for Canada Post at the same time.