Government Operations Committee on Oct. 18th, 2016

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

Okay.

You can answer it later on in somebody else's question, perhaps.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

I'm sure that will come up again. Thank you.

Mr. McCauley, go ahead for seven minutes, please.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Thanks for joining us today. I appreciate your commentary. I don't necessarily agree with it all, but I appreciate it.

In the interest of full disclosure, I know Mr. Rosendorff from some past fundraising with the Red Cross.

Thank you for joining us today. Thanks for the work you did helping rebuild Slave Lake, and with High River as well. You mentioned the fundraising work you did using Canada Post. Was that addressed direct mail or just blanket mail?

[Steven Rosendorff]

It was addressed direct mail.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

You talked about a Plan B to deal with the possibility of a strike. Is there anyone else who could possibly do those services for Canada Post, or who you're using with Canada Post, or...?

[Steven Rosendorff]

We were looking at alternatives, as in courier companies.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Were you able to go into electronic fundraising at all?

[Steven Rosendorff]

Yes, absolutely.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I'm just curious, because that has come up. We've had several other witnesses from not-for-profits.

[Steven Rosendorff]

Sadly, the use of postage is diminishing. Electronic is far more efficient because you can control email addresses. They bounce back, and you can track what has been read. It's much more cost-efficient and it's quicker.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

What would be the effect of a stamp increase on something like the Red Cross with the constant mail-outs? That's one thing that's been suggested, that the price of stamps be raised.

[Steven Rosendorff]

That would be counterproductive. It would increase the costs for every single not-for-profit, I would say, because they all use the postal system to a greater or lesser degree. It would just push the costs up.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Okay.

[Steven Rosendorff]

It may lead them to say that they won't post things.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Right.

Ms. Beale and Mr. Bennett, thanks for your comments.

Mr. Bennett, I loved your comment about the Kardashians. Well done. I share your view about the local arena. It's the same with grain elevators and farms as you drive around rural areas. I think we've heard a lot from people that we need to do a lot to strengthen our rural presence, so thanks for the comments.

You mentioned growing businesses, and you listed a lot of things—couriers, insurance registries, banking. They're all served by the private sector right now. You talked about creating jobs without any cost. But any job taken by Canada Post will be a job taken out of the private sector or someone else's pocket, so to speak. Do you see that at all, or do you think these are just brand new jobs that would be created without any loss by the private sector? Do you really think Canada Post can do banking better, insurance better, private courier, etc., better than the private sector can?

I'm not asking this in an argumentative way. We've heard it said a lot that we want to increase revenue, but a lot of these items are being done by the private sector right now. We can't just take from one and then not have an effect on the other side.

[Anna Beale]

I think you're talking about competition in a way as well, because you're saying take it away and put it on the other side. When you first started that, I had never heard it put that way before.

Anyway, of all the things I listed—that's not all of them and it's not the end of it all—a lot of these things we did in the past. We used to sell hunting licences. I worked in retail for Canada Post for 14 years. It was the best job in the world. Selling all of these things is something Canada Post has looked at and maybe thought about, and then said, “Oh, well, no, we don't want to do that”, but they're all things that we have the people and the space to do. We already compete, so doing these things wouldn't be any different.

Canada Post calls itself a business, and businesses are in competition. They don't stand alone. Canada Post also provides a service. To take a job from one place to put it another place... Canada Post jobs are well paid and have good benefits; they're good middle-class jobs, but I don't think I can say the same thing about a lot of the jobs that are being created.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

These are funded by the taxpayer—

[Anna Beale]

No.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

This is not money that just comes out of the blue. If we take away banking jobs, and put them as well-paying Canada Post jobs, again, those would be funded by the taxpayers. They're not just created out of the blue with new revenue generated. That's my rebuttal of the things that have been brought up in that we'll create a $50,000 Canada Post job and get rid of a $30,000 bank job. Someone has to pay for that, and it's paid for with stamps, etc., from the private sector.

[Anna Beale]

I went to interrupt, and I apologize, because I'm notorious for that.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

So are we, so don't worry.

[Anna Beale]

Canada Post is self-sufficient. The days when the Canadian public paid for postal worker wages are long gone. They've been gone for a long time. I can't give an exact date—maybe David would be better at that than I am—and I should know, but the days of the Canadian public paying for us posties are gone. We pay for ourselves, and that's another reason we want Canada Post to get into different lines of business. We want Canada Post to grow. We want the presence in the community.

The cost, if you go into a different type of business, a different line of business, whether it's logistics or those kinds of things—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I'm going to interrupt you quickly to get on to something else you talked about that I want feedback on, and we're probably short of time.

We hear a lot of cut, cut, cut. I know there have been changes with going to community mailboxes as opposed to door-to-door delivery. What other cuts, so to speak, have there been with Canada Post in the last five or 10 years?

There's a moratorium on closing post offices, etc., and so when we hear “cut, cut, cut”, please educate me on what's getting cut.

[Anna Beale]

I was thinking mainly about the cuts to the private outlets, because—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

But that's not happening anymore, right?