Evidence of meeting #46 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 rural.
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
Okay.
Ms. Sanderson, I was quite intrigued by what you said, that you went to four retail outlets, and they all had different pricing. Were these franchise stores?
12:10 p.m.
President, Saskatoon Local, Canadian Union of Postal Workers
Each one of them was a Shoppers Drug Mart outlet.
12:10 p.m.
President, Saskatoon Local, Canadian Union of Postal Workers
I would say yes.
12:10 p.m.
President, Saskatoon Local, Canadian Union of Postal Workers
Yes, we did.
12:10 p.m.
President, Saskatoon Local, Canadian Union of Postal Workers
Canada Post to my knowledge has done nothing with that information thus far.
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
Okay. Here we are trying to look at making Canada Post sustainable. We know that mail has dropped, etc., but ad mail has increased. How does Canada Post price its ad mail?
You heard the previous business person talk about Canada Post not being competitive and it's costing him a lot. How does it remain competitive? Who prices it? Did he come to your outlet or did he go to a franchise? I don't know. I didn't ask him that.
12:10 p.m.
President, Saskatoon Local, Canadian Union of Postal Workers
I think the previous speaker was talking about flyers. I was a little confused by what he was trying to present, whether he wanted to continue to have that service or not. I have friends who have distributed flyers within their own communities, and Canada Post is charging them about 23¢ to 27¢ per flyer. On average they're paying letter carriers to deliver or distribute them at 2.3¢ per flyer.
If business people are looking at Canada Post to distribute flyers, and Canada Post has a large number of community mailboxes, if I were a business person I would be somewhat concerned about the fact that people aren't checking their community mailboxes on a regular basis, and we definitely see issues with vandalism with those boxes. We see issues with debris around those boxes, but we also see issues where businesses are putting out flyers that have a marked date of a sale, or whatever the case may be.
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
Canada Post is being blamed for an initiative that the workers were not responsible for.
Interestingly enough, you've been asked if your wages are in a race to the bottom. We don't want a race to the bottom because if we want to enhance the economic viability of communities, we want to ensure there is some creativity, thinking outside the box, integrated thinking that will create economic hubs in the communities you live in.
How often in your 18 years have you gone on strike?
12:10 p.m.
President, Saskatoon Local, Canadian Union of Postal Workers
That's a good question, thank you. In the 18 years that I've worked at the post office, we had rotating strikes once. We have been locked out by the corporation one time, and although the public often thinks that we go on strike all the time, and they confuse whether or not a lockout is a strike—and I try to explain that to people all the time—just twice recently the corporation threatened to lock us out in June. We had taken a strike vote, and voted largely in favour of a strike if we were going to continue to see a reduction in services and in our benefits and pensions, etc. We never did strike. What we did is we said that we were going to refuse to work overtime, which many carriers are forced to do on a daily basis in many centres.
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
When Canada Post sends out this notice to businesses saying they're potentially going to go on strike, are they shooting themselves in the foot, or are they keeping businesses aware? Are they doing their due diligence, or are they shooting themselves?
12:10 p.m.
President, Saskatoon Local, Canadian Union of Postal Workers
What we saw was Canada Post at the time was notifying businesses to let them know that there was a potential for a strike when there was more of a potential for a lockout, and we saw businesses shifting and finding alternatives. Canada Post was also in a position where they were encouraging large retail networks like eBay to shift their business over to Purolator. We saw that. I believe definitely Canada Post was shooting themselves in the foot, and most recently, CUPW settled with Canada Post, and Canada Post was forced to acknowledge what their actions did.
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
Do you think that you will be able to bring forth your creative ideas and work with current management? You'll have to give me a quick answer because I need to speak to Ms. Krahenbil.
12:10 p.m.
President, Saskatoon Local, Canadian Union of Postal Workers
I think that anybody who is involved with Canada Post, whether on the work floor or in management, has a responsibility to look at better alternatives and enlightened alternatives for the public post office.
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
Thank you.
Ms. Krahenbil, you were talking about 1,200 corporate offices that might be used as banking or whatever. Do they have broadband? Where are they? Are they in remote areas?
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President, Saskatchewan Branch, Canadian Postmasters and Assistants Association
They would be mostly in remote areas, and I'm unfortunately unfamiliar if they have broadband or not, but I would think some may.
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
That's our big problem because if you want postal banking, whatever it is, if it's cashing a cheque or whatever.... India is doing that. They're giving everybody a cellphone and saying, “Here is your cellphone. It's cheap. Use that infrastructure to bank.”
12:10 p.m.
President, Saskatchewan Branch, Canadian Postmasters and Assistants Association
I'm sorry. I've misunderstood your question. Actually in the majority of our rural centres, there would be because they have the retail point of sale. They would have, yes.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Thank you very much.
We'll go to our two final interventions. They will be five minutes each.
Mr. McCauley, you're up.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Ladies, thanks for joining us today.
Ms. Friars, thanks for your advocacy in the work for seniors. It's much appreciated. I know we've discussed this, and you've been asked several times about the once a week, and you've insisted that these folks deserve five days a week. Do you think there's a meeting point in the middle? We've heard this from various seniors groups across the country, and we've received some great ideas like doing it twice a week, or twice a week but in the summer months go back to once a week. Do you see any middle-of-the-road solutions, recognizing that going back to five days a week may not be doable? Do you see an acceptable compromise?
12:10 p.m.
President, Moose Jaw & District Senior Association
I see the going back to limited delivery during the week as related to, as was mentioned by the Canada Post representative, a drop in wages and in staff. That being said, how many times in the last 100 years have the corporate heads, or CEOs, for instance, taking the same drop in—
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Sorry, maybe I misunderstood. I'm not asking about pay wage. I'm asking about enhancing service for the seniors who are not able to get to the mailbox on a daily basis.