I'll give you an example. I'm from Alberta, and I represent a Calgary area. I have lived in small-town Alberta as well. After Alberta Treasury Branches, a quasi-bank owned by the Government of Alberta, upgraded its software in order to provide better banking services, it cost them $355 million and 76,000 hours of training, and that was only to train 5,000 employees. Canada Post has 50,000 employees who provide some type of service with a great many more branches.
This committee needs to look at the long-term sustainability of Canada Post. The investment required to get it to the point where it could provide a postal banking service would require a lot of financing from the government side.
Do you think we should do this through higher stamp costs or differential costs for letter delivery? Should we do it by raising taxes or direct subsidy, perhaps, from the government to Canada Post to finance this?