Government Operations Committee on Oct. 18th, 2016

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

With these “and” conversations, we have a management in Canada Post that's been in contraction mode for about a decade. In this committee's struggle between saving Canada Post through contraction versus a paradigm shift in Canada Post and have it more outward looking, open to new service offerings, and reinventing itself, how do we obtain that cultural shift in the high-level management of Canada Post to allow that transformation to happen?

[Debby Kronewitt-Martin]

It's very practical. It seldom occurs without a major change in leadership and one or two levels down. I specialize in change management. Occasionally, you can find people who will do it, but more often than not you won't. For example, Procter & Gamble got rid of the top level and one or two levels down, and it brought in somebody who was going to make that change. I'm just being extremely practical here.

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

This is what we're looking for.

If our committee were to recommend a radical change in the type of direction that Canada Post is going to take, then you would also recommend, based on your professional expertise, that we would also need to do a change in management and bring in a management team that is prepared to execute on that change.

[Debby Kronewitt-Martin]

Yes, I would do that.

I want to also state that the current management team was given a certain mandate.

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

Exactly.

[Debby Kronewitt-Martin]

They were given parameters. The first thing to ask is whether they're willing to move out of that box. If you can't see them moving, then make the change fast. If Parliament or whatever government has been setting those parameters, then give them that chance to at least move into that new realm.

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

Okay, fair enough.

Mr. Oddleifson, in your experience as a businessperson and also as somebody who uses Canada Post and Purolator, what is your impression of how labour relations and public relations have gone with Canada Post over the recent past?

[Eric Oddleifson]

I don't know how to answer that one. I didn't even know that Purolator was majorly owned by Canada Post. That should be publicized better.

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

You've been satisfied with the service you've received from Canada Post?

[Eric Oddleifson]

Absolutely.

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

These other extraneous things that we're talking about in closed quarters haven't necessarily affected you in your business.

[Eric Oddleifson]

Not entirely, no. That's right.

I did practise law up in the Northwest Territories in my early career, and I lament often about the high costs that they have to endure compared with the rest of us down south. We call it, when we're up there, “the outside”. Yes, that is a tough one, but that's why it's not just a business. It's a service, and it has to find a balance in there.

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

Mr. Newell, when we talked about door-to-door service delivery we were presented with one option of imposing community mailboxes and potentially saving an extra $320 million per year. The corporation has already done 80 million dollars' worth of the value of that transformation.

Going in the other direction if you just do a back of the napkin calculation based on the annual report, you're looking at going another $750 million in the other direction, in terms of providing door-to-door service to everyone who currently has a community mailbox. In that model of expanding out if the opportunities are not there to generate just over $1 billion in annual difference, is that something that the Government of Canada should subsidize?

Do you think that people would be prepared to pay those extra taxes of whatever that is, $300 for every person in the country per year, to cover off the difference? Sorry, it's $30 per person. My math wasn't good.

[Hugh Newell]

Your math isn't very good.

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

It's $30 a person.

[Hugh Newell]

I think you're making some assumptions that don't need to be made. Does mail have to be delivered five days a week? Could mail not be delivered two days a week to homes? Would that not save money? That certainly wouldn't be a big problem.

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

I think we heard from the corporation and the unions that it wouldn't save money and that the way systems are designed they're designed for daily sort and daily delivery. The union and the corporation agree that daily mail delivery is part of the model that allows them to achieve these efficiencies that they have in the system.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

We won't be able to hear the commentary on that unfortunately. We are now down to our last two intervenors and they have five minutes each.

Mr. Clarke, you have five minutes.

You may want to put on your translation devices, panellists.

He'll speak French.

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for being here this morning.

Mr. Newell, there were questions about whether it was a service or a business. I think it's more than that. Canada Post is a symbol of national unity. I have the impression that, in the national subconsciousness, Canada Post is an institution and a corporation that helps cement federal political ties.

Do your members refer to Canada Post as a national symbol that's critical to federal unity?

[Hugh Newell]

I don't think that they would say it in those ways, but Canada Post is important to them. It's part of the fabric of Canada. It's part of what they have grown up to believe in. It's part of what they want. I'm not so sure that many of them would think in terms of national unity, or French-English relationships, or anything else, but it is a part of the fabric of Canada. It is something that is important in their lives and it is not something that they would be happy to give up.

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Ms. Kronewitt-Martin, what do you think?

[Debby Kronewitt-Martin]

I agree with you completely. I think it is part of our national heritage, if you will. If you look at strong countries in the world, they have national postal systems. If you look at the countries that are in trouble, that's one of the first things that goes away. I believe that it's core to providing service. As I said, we have that infrastructure. We need to keep it and we need to grow it.

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

You spoke about connecting people.

You spoke about reinventing Canada Post to make it a viable corporation. I was wondering whether you had any specific ideas. In fact, I see you have many ideas. I like your approach and your desire to change paradigms and to not say “or” but “and” instead.

However, I noticed that your solutions are more external than internal. In my lifetime and since I've been able to think, I've rarely mixed with people who have incredible pensions for life or who have substantial and considerable benefits. I grew up in the Acadian Peninsula, in New Brunswick, where most people must be self-reliant or must depend on their old age security pension.

At Canada Post, do you think the workers are making a substantial effort to change the paradigm you mentioned?

[Debby Kronewitt-Martin]

I think that's definitely a possibility.

I talked about a platform, so you set up a platform of services. I also talked about business service centres. If, in these rural communities that you speak about, they had a service centre where people could go to learn.... Say you don't have access to a doctor and you could go and have a quiet room where you could do telemedicine, you start to solve a lot of other problems in rural communities and offer them access to services they don't have.

You talk about people who don't have the same opportunities. This is opening up opportunities. That's what I'm getting to. Let's change the platform to actually focus on opportunities, to find out what's missing and whether this infrastructure provides the opportunity to help with that.

Does that answer your question?

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Yes and no.

In addition to finding external possibilities and new services for Canada Post, do you think the 50,000 Canada Post employees should accept changes to their benefits and pension plan?

They're nevertheless part of a privileged elite in Canada.