So it wouldn't be as big of an issue for you.
Evidence of meeting #43 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was service.
Evidence of meeting #43 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was service.
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NDP
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Manager, Billing Operations, EPCOR Utilities Inc.
Exactly. We don't have a lot of long-distance mailing.
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President and Chief Executive Officer, St. Albert and District Chamber of Commerce
I wish I had the opportunity to ask that question to my members, particularly today when you see so much electronic-goods transfer. People are ordering online and they're receiving their goods by mail, by Canada Post often. Also, people are ordering online from businesses located within our community, so they have to now ship the goods out. I would really like to have the opportunity to ask our business community how much that would impact their bottom line and whether that's something that's acceptable to them, because I think it's an interesting proposal.
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NDP
Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
Of course, people are mobile now. A grandmother can be sending a package to St. John's, Newfoundland—
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President and Chief Executive Officer, St. Albert and District Chamber of Commerce
Yes, exactly.
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NDP
Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
—and probably couldn't afford to pay more. Also, it is supposed to be a public service.
Interestingly, in the newspaper just yesterday there was a forecast of adding 120,000 seasonal workers to Amazon. Nowadays there's a huge increase in buying online. Do you think there's a lot of potential for Canada Post to actually.... First of all, I'd like to get on the record that I find the forecast deficit highly questionable. There are lots of ways to generate that revenue, including the postal banks. But given how much shopping is going on online, do any of you have a comment about that? There will probably be a lot more parcels, which are of course shared between Canada Post and other companies.
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President and Chief Executive Officer, St. Albert and District Chamber of Commerce
I think it's an amazing opportunity for Canada Post. What I think you need to be doing is probably expanding the mandate of what you're doing right now, and speak directly with entrepreneurs who operate small and medium-sized enterprises, as well as the larger enterprises, and really do some serious brainstorming on innovation and how this can work as a profit centre for Canada Post, because it is an opportunity. There's nobody better than an entrepreneur to know how to take advantage of an opportunity and turn it into....
Those are the kinds of minds I suggest you need to be tackling this, the people who think that way. You almost can't learn it. Either you think that way, or you don't. If that's the way your brain works and you're entrepreneurial, and you grab at an opportunity, then you know how to make that work. Those are the people you need to ask, as far as I'm concerned.
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NDP
Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
My final question is about postal banking. Apparently this is very common around the world, and apparently 71% of Switzerland's postal profits are from postal banking, for New Zealand it is 70% of profits, in Italy it is 67% of profits, and even Britain has 25% of sales.
This is for anybody who would like to answer, but probably mostly Ms. Schinke. If it's not profitable to set up payday loans, say, on aboriginal reserves or in far northern communities, doesn't it make sense then for Canada Post to be stepping in? My understanding from talking to Councillor Nickel is that we already have some level of postal banking.
What do you think about that proposal? There's a number of people saying that if it's happening around the world, why not in Canada? It could help make Canada Post more affordable to the ordinary user.
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Former Vice-President, Cash Money Inc.
When it comes to postal banking, I'm wondering if specifically it's postal payday loan banking or just other banking services? I think we need to differentiate between the two services.
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NDP
Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
This is specifically postal banking, and I presume around the world they do small loans. I know the United States has been considering it. One of the senators has been proposing that particularly for things like electric plug-ins for cars, or for solar panels.
My brother's a small business owner. I know he has a struggle getting loans from a bank even though he has been in business a long time, but he doesn't necessarily want to go to a payday loan place. People trust the post office.
Do you think that's an option Canada Post should be thinking about? There would be competition and maybe the rates would go down for the payday loans.
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Former Vice-President, Cash Money Inc.
As I said earlier, the industry is more complex than many realize. If Canada Post is willing to take that risk and handle the default without taking any type of collateral, then that's something to think about.
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Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Thank you very much.
We'll go to Mr. Whalen for seven minutes, please.
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Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you all for coming here today early on a Tuesday morning to help us figure out a future for Canada Post.
Ms. Moffat, you talked about your members saying the post office is its own worst enemy. Can you elaborate a little bit on what you mean by that?
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President and Chief Executive Officer, St. Albert and District Chamber of Commerce
Sure. That was when the discussion was whether or not the post office was going to close. It was relative to how, if the post office closed, these business people would have to seek private companies to fulfill the activities Canada Post was providing.
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Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
Is there a sense amongst your membership that Canada Post bites the hand that feeds it in some way? It sort of diminishes it's own demand, reduces its own demand, or drives its business towards its competitors?
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President and Chief Executive Officer, St. Albert and District Chamber of Commerce
I don't think so. I think that was really directed at that one discussion, which was the closing of the post office. We have business parks and things. Those guys drive downtown to the post office all the time, and so for them.... It was pretty surprising to me how big a deal it was to the business people. I had no idea.
But I don't think they have that attitude overall about Canada Post. I really believe it had to do with that one discussion.
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Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
If Canada Post offered banking services, do you think your members would be interested in using Canada Post as their bank, or do you think they're satisfied with the level of banking service they currently get?
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President and Chief Executive Officer, St. Albert and District Chamber of Commerce
It offers them another option. I'm more interested in looking at it from the perspective of Canada Post. Here you are looking for new and innovative ways to increase your revenues, so that you can continue to offer the kinds of services that perhaps are not the big revenue generators. If you come across an idea, you've done the homework on it, and you can see that it offers a good opportunity, then I don't know why you wouldn't go ahead with it.
I don't know what's possible through Canada Post, and whether you can possibly do a test somewhere in this country to better give yourself an idea of how the uptake would be on it, or whether, if you decide to go that way, you have to just, boom, do it. I don't know what you have to do.
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Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
Ms. Mackintosh, we've learned that the rate of decrease in letter mail is 5% to 6% a year, and that doesn't seem to be abating. Have you seen the same trend within your organizations with the uptake in epost or your own electronic billing service online? Does it match what we're hearing from Canada Post, in that every year one in every 20 of your customers is moving over?
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Manager, Billing Operations, EPCOR Utilities Inc.
I think we've seen more than that. As an example, last year our e-bill adoption at the end of 2015 was around 18%, and we're currently at 25%. I would say we've seen more.
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Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
Did you feel the labour disruption this summer drove more people to migrate?
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Manager, Billing Operations, EPCOR Utilities Inc.
It definitely did, yes.
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Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
Would you blame that scenario on the labour disruption as being the approximate cause? Or had you guys done your own independent efforts to drive e-billing, which might have done the work?
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Manager, Billing Operations, EPCOR Utilities Inc.
We've done both. We encourage customers to go on whatever form of electronic billing they choose, because it is a cheaper option. We have internal promotions with our contact centre agents, as an example, and advertisements, but I do think that the potential labour disruption did cause a bump for us, as well. It caused an increase.