Government Operations Committee on Oct. 18th, 2016

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

Our final intervention will come from Ms. Shanahan for five minutes, please.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you very much to the panellists for being here this morning. It has been very interesting.

Just off the top, because I don't have much time, I did want to address this.

Ms. Schinke, thank you very much for describing your industry. As a former banker turned social worker, I'm very aware of the emotional component that goes into the behavioural aspects of your work. Your industry does fill a gap in the financial services marketplace. Indeed, there's a huge difference between payday lending and the kind of transactional services that I understand would be more appropriate in a postal banking environment, whatever that is, but I certainly recognize that there's risk involved in any kind of banking enterprise and that has to be fully evaluated from a business point of view. Thank you for your testimony on that.

What I'm hearing from the business community here is that you're looking for a reliable business partner, and Canada Post has been that partner, but there are some pain points, as you so aptly put it, Ms. Mackintosh. What kinds of other services would you see, if we could smooth out those pain points? What would you be looking for in that reliable business partner, especially with parcel e-commerce delivery really growing?

I'll start with Ms. Mackintosh, and then go to Ms. Moffat.

[Meghan Mackintosh]

I think at its core most of the mail delivery that we require isn't parcel-related, so I don't think we would necessarily have an increase in the use of Canada Post.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Are there any other services that you would like to see that would be helpful for your business?

[Meghan Mackintosh]

There's nothing that comes to mind.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Okay, I get it.

[Lynda Moffat]

I kind of feel the same. I think that the services provided by Canada Post are valued because they work. Yes. I just don't know of anything that you could add to it that would enhance what you're doing.

When it comes to the pain points, let's say, or what you inquired about, when I found out about this potential post office closure, it was a big surprise. There's a communication gap somewhere between Canada Post and the rest of the world, basically, as to what its thinking of doing. How do you know before it's all of a sudden landed in your lap, and then you have to deal with it very quickly?

If you don't mind a little plug, we have chambers of commerce throughout this country, and they communicate very well with their business communities through either the Canadian Chamber of Commerce or the provincial and territorial chambers of commerce. That's what we do. We work with business. If you need to know something, like this potential closure of the post office, or anything else, or when it comes to the pricing increases, we don't want to have to hear that through the media. We want somebody to have already told us, and by “us” I mean business people across the country. They need to know that.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

There's huge room for improvement, then, in communications, in consultation with the business community, and by extension, with the larger community.

I know this is not really your area, but I'm just going to throw it out there. One of the ideas that is being tossed around is converting postal assets, postal facilities, to community hubs, which would be offering other services from the federal government, such as help with taxes or financial literacy. How many people don't apply for their GST rebate? That could go a long way to helping them out.

This is out of the box. Do you have any thoughts on that, perhaps, Ms. Schinke?

[Kristina Schinke]

It's a thought. I know the federal government currently has quite a few free resources for taxes, for example, or for GST, or for child tax rebates, so any additional resources would certainly more likely cover the needs that are out there.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

You could have an employee in the postal office actually helping people with accessing those services.

[Kristina Schinke]

Again, I guess the thing to keep in mind is the training. Is it practical to train a postal worker to do all of the above and to be a specialist in all those areas?

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you so much, all of you, for being here today. Your testimony has assisted us greatly.

Should you have any additional information you wish to provide to the committee, which you think might help us in our deliberations, please do so. You can contact our clerk and submit that information directly.

Following our consultations, we will be tabling a report in the House of Commons. We expect that to happen probably sometime in late November, or at the latest, very early in December, so for any information you do have, I would ask you to provide that to us within the next two weeks.

Thank you once again. We appreciate your attendance here.

We are suspended until the next group of panellists comes to the table. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, I think we'll get going right now. Madame Kennedy will be with us in a moment.

Mr. Nickel, I'm sure you've been in the audience and observed how we work things around here. The process is fairly simple. After your brief opening statement of five minutes or less—and I will interject if you go too far beyond that—we'll enter into a round of questions and answers with all our committee members. We actually have a bit of a tight schedule, so that's why we try to keep on time.

We would ask you to start, sir, if you wouldn't mind, for five minutes or less.

[Mike Nickel, Councillor, City of Edmonton]

Certainly, and thank you very much to the committee.

I'm here today to speak to you as a citizen but as a businessman as well, not as a city councillor, to argue for the continuation of door-to-door delivery service and an end to the super mailbox program.

I'll begin my comments by simply saying we all know it's about more than just the mail, but my perspective is different from most others as I see this not as an issue of cost or cost-recovery for Canada Post, but one of opportunity, and I understand that Canada Post's real value as a corporation lies not in just the delivery of mail but in the power of its distribution and real estate network. There's no other corporation in Canada that has more distribution power than Canada Post. To this we surely would all agree. It is worth mentioning that even as the corporation, Canada Post, through its parcel delivery program network has reaped large financial benefits over the last years because of the online business, and so on, I see this as an obvious place for it to continue to grow its business model.

As an aside, as many in this region know, I personally have been a strong public advocate for a minimization of waste, inefficiency, and duplication of services for both the private and public sectors. People do not mind paying taxes as long as they are getting value for those same taxes, so by extension, value for your taxes has been my primary mission in many of my public endeavours.

Canada Post is a stand-alone crown entity and I believe it's also committed to those same values. I do not believe I need really to connect the lines between Canada Post, its necessity, and the public good, for I just won't have time to do that today.

My argument today is a simple one. Canada Post, through its reduction of door-to-door delivery service, is not maximizing its distributive potential, either financially or on better societal outcomes. I have come to know that there is great potential for positive outcomes on both fronts, and they're not just desirable, but I would argue, they're achievable. Understanding that the boots on the street, the very makeup of Canada Post's distributive system, are about more than just delivering mail, we can quickly come to see that there are numerous other opportunities to add value to Canada Post's services, using not only its real estate assets but more importantly its personnel.

If seen in conjunction with other orders of government—and that's the most important point I'm trying to make today—one can quickly see that we are duplicating many services, thereby duplicating person-hours, thereby duplicating the cost to the taxpayers. These efficiencies range simply from the argument of boots on the street. If, for example, I could have an individual walking around using just a simple app and reporting on potholes or infill issues and such, it would reduce the burden on another order of government, that being the city.

To be fair to Canada Post, these value-added services should not be considered free, and it should be fairly compensated for these extras. What is clearly required is a financial assessment of these various value-added services that are available and the appropriate order of government to pay. Once the business case has been piloted, of course—I always believe in evolution, not revolution—we can deploy. The opportunities are there.

I'm looking for my light. Do I have a light for my five minutes?

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

I'll give you one minute. You're at one minute now.

[Mike Nickel]

You'll give me one minute. You see, at city council I get a light.

I'll just end by saying, I know there will be some questions on some of the issues I've raised, which I am happy to be here to answer. I would also like an opportunity to speak about the social hub aspect, where Canada Post can play a pivotal role in those primary hard-core urban centres and those geographically far-flung populations that are definitely hard to reach.

Thank you, sir.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much, Mr. Nickel. To your point about wanting to speak to the community hub aspect, we find that most of the information that is transferred to us comes out during the question and answer process. Community hub is a suggestion that has been made, not only by the task force but by many other presenters, and I'm sure that some of our committee members will gladly ask you to expound upon that.

Ms. Kennedy, I don't think you were in the audience when we had our first session this morning. Just to briefly go over the process, it's quite simple. We're going to ask you to give a brief opening statement of five minutes or less. If you are starting to go beyond five minutes, I will unfortunately have to interject and get you to wrap up quickly. As I mentioned to Mr. Nickel, we find that most of the information comes out during the question and answer process. Following your five-minute opening statement, we'll have a round of questions and answers from all of our committee members, and hopefully then your testimony, whatever it is you have to say. We will get it on the public record, and it will allow us to put that into our final report.

Ms. Kennedy, with that brief introduction, we welcome you here today. We ask you to please give your five-minute statement. The floor is yours.

[Karen Kennedy, As an Individual]

Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to address you on your tour of the country. I read briefly on the website about some of the other hearings, so I have a basic idea about the questioning thing, but thank you very much.

I'm a retired member of the community. I worked at Canada Post for 40 years before I retired. I'm currently drawing a pension from Canada Post. I teach a pension course for those who are about to retire, unofficially, I guess. People have my cellphone number if they have questions, and I help them with the process. I have some understanding of the pension situation at Canada Post. I want to speak on behalf of all those retirees who are very concerned about what's happening with Canada Post, who are very concerned that it remain a viable public service in Canada, and who are watching closely what's being done with the pension, because we rely on it every day.

I'm very active in my community. I'm a volunteer with the front yards in bloom program. You didn't mention it.

[Mike Nickel]

I didn't have time.

[Karen Kennedy]

It's okay. I do.

The front yards in bloom program is a partnership with the City of Edmonton, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, and the Edmonton Horticultural Society. We do a program every year where the letter carriers nominate yards that they walk in and that are in their communities for awards because of their front yards and beautifying the city of Edmonton. It's a very strong connection we have, it's a very important program, and it's very popular with our letter carriers and very popular in the community. That's an example of a partnership that exists that is a very positive thing.

I want to speak on the community mailboxes. I'm in a mature neighbourhood. We have door-to-door delivery. I would like to see that continue. I have talked to many others, and everyone would like to see it continue. My daughter is in university. She uses the Internet a lot. You were talking about the digital age. She has a completely different view of things. She and her classmates check online to see what they can find as far as delivery service for things that they order online, and they do this a lot. They compare the websites between the different companies that offer that delivery. They think that Canada Post is not up to snuff when it comes to that. It's not an easy-to-use website. They can't get straightforward information about the rates. They'd like to use Canada Post, and they'd like to see it improved.

One of her friends lived at home in a community—and has moved closer to the university now—where they had mailboxes they had to go to. He's just thrilled with his letter carrier delivery now that he's in a delivery area, which is around the university.

I think that the public service of Canada Post is the door-to-door delivery. There are connections throughout Canada. I have a cottage in a rural community. I'm originally from Nova Scotia, so we have a place there. Going there this summer, we found the mail is delivered to the end of the driveway, but there is only one bank in town. There's a small post office in each of the communities, and it is really a hub for the community to go in there and exchange information.

I think it's very important that you consider the options that have been put forward. I've presented a couple of documents here today, which I'm sure you've already seen, about public service, the rural communities, and expanding the services. There are some excellent ideas in these documents about doing that. Some of them, Mike Nickel has already touched on. There are some excellent ideas, and I would encourage you to look at all of those and at expanding the service.

I don't know how much time I have left.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

You have about a minute.

[Karen Kennedy]

In the time that I worked at Canada Post, I experienced a great many things over 40 years, as you can well imagine. I've been retired for two years. The big thing I want to tell you about is the culture of Canada Post, the way that it treats its employees, and the way it deals with the union. I've seen various leadership there come and go, both on the union side and on the Canada Post side.

I would encourage you not to lose the opportunity to interact with those individuals who work at Canada Post. They are really dedicated employees. They're trying to do their jobs well, but constantly there are changes made that interfere with that, and they do not feel supported. You can send someone for a training session on how they should provide good customer service at the counter—and I worked at the retail counter, I worked inside, and I worked with the letter carriers—but when the management above you is treating you poorly, that training doesn't translate well out to the public.

I would encourage you to change the culture there, take the opportunity to make this a wonderful connection with Canadians across the country, and invest in Canada Post.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

We'll now start our seven-minute round of questions and answers.

Madam Ratansi, you have seven minutes please.

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

Thank you very much.

We were looking for creative ideas, and some of your ideas are very creative. I appreciate that.

I am going to ask you some quick questions. Should Canada Post be a business, a service, or both?

[Mike Nickel]

I think it already is. It's all three of those things. It is a business and it is a service, and it is an essential service that needs to be value-added.