Government Operations Committee on Oct. 20th, 2016

[Carmen Sterling]

Our members primarily are not served by a walked route. Parcel pickup is the way we're serviced in the rural areas, so there would probably be limited opportunity for our members to partner on programs like that.

Certainly our members are always open to opportunities, depending on what the opportunity might be, but for things like the bylaw enforcement and licensing you referenced, it would be difficult. Our communities are generally serviced by their office, which is probably the main point of contact, and there's no mail delivery service that could fill in for that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

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

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Thanks for joining us today.

It's wonderful to be in Regina. I have a long family history here. My uncle served here for part of the war before he headed overseas, training pilots out of Regina.

Ms. Button, thanks for your comments.

We've been hearing mixed messages about the amount of consultation Canada Post has done with communities. I think you're from Weyburn, but we're heard from communities saying that they've heard nothing, and then later we get a whole stack of information showing that they had been quite roundly consulted.

Can you let us know how the consultation process with Canada Post was with you?

[Debra Button]

Sure, I would love to.

When we initially started to hear that there may be changes, Doug Jones approached SUMA, and then again came to Weyburn and approached us as well. He spoke with our city mayors' caucus around the issue of Canada Post and the changes. Then we were approached in Weyburn by two gentlemen—and I'm sorry, but I don't recall their names—and they started the process of the community mailboxes for us.

Actually, it was a nice smooth process. We had a lot of give and take and discussion back and forth. We received a big binder just after the federal election, or just prior to that, showing where those community mailboxes were going to be located in Weyburn. We were in the process of going back and forth to say this one's good, this one's not going to work, and this one's okay.

I have to say that overall we were quite pleased with the interaction and co-operation we were getting from Canada Post.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I think that's probably the best way. The grassroots knows best.

Do you think that SUMA and similar organizations are the best place for Canada Post to start with in consultation, or right with the municipality itself?

[Debra Button]

I think start right with the municipalities themselves. They're all different, all unique, and they know their communities better than SUMA would.

I have to say as well that although Weyburn had a great experience with Canada Post, I know some of our members haven't, so there's been a mixed message. Certainly ours was good.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Okay. Ms. Sterling, thanks for your comments.

I just want to check this with you, because we've heard very clearly across the country that Canada Post means different things depending on where you are.

In the big cities, Canada Post is just the local Shoppers Drug Mart, but out in the rural areas, it is a community hub and it's a lot more important.

One of the things we've been hearing from the smaller communities, but also on the task force, is to look at the 700 or so Canada Post-owned post offices in the big cities and turn those over to the private area, with the money saved being used to help preserve and expand Canada Post in the rural areas, where it means a lot more.

Do you think your organization believes this is a good, valid idea?

[Carmen Sterling]

Our organization is supportive of any measures that are taken to keep that postal delivery service in rural Saskatchewan for our members and the majority of our ratepayers.

As I indicated before, ours is a main pickup centre, and most of us are going into town anyway. A phrase that's quite often used is “I'm going to town to get the mail”, and they're doing other things in these communities.

I can't say, on behalf of our members, that sacrificing that service in urban—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Where I live in Edmonton, I can Google it and find 21 Canada Post service stations within a five-minute drive, and we have corporate ones as well. Maybe we don't need those corporate ones, but rural areas do.

[Carmen Sterling]

Right. As I said, we would support initiatives to reduce costs in the urban centres in favour of supporting our rural service—without reducing their service, of course.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

This is a difficult question: what do you think is the greatest need that your municipalities or areas have from Canada Post right now? What would be the greatest want? Would it be longer hours, more outlets?

[Carmen Sterling]

I think even just some collaboration in how decisions are made about the hours of service and delivery days. I think that for the most part our members and our ratepayers would agree that there's not necessarily a demand there to have something delivered to us every day, if we understood the reasons behind why it couldn't be.

Parcel delivery is very important to our members. We do not have physical addresses to have parcels delivered in Saskatchewan, so I think parcel delivery is important. A lot of our municipal offices receive items by mail. In a lot of cases, the limitations of broadband in some areas means that documents that normally might be sent by email or digitally can't be accepted, so they're still using mail service to receive those documents as well.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

That's great.

I love your comment about the date stamp. I think it's important, because I pay enough photo radar tickets in Edmonton to have that done.

Ms. Button, we probably only have about 30 seconds. It's the same kind of question in a different world: what would you look for if you could pick one or two top things from Canada Post?

[Debra Button]

The one thing that we kept emphasizing when we were going through the process in Weyburn was about the delivery for homebound people who aren't able to make it to those community mailboxes. We would look to make sure those people were protected in whatever changes come along.

We are very supportive of having Canada Post outside of their physical buildings. As I said, in Weyburn it's been the Pharmasave store. It works quite well, and they have extended hours for people who aren't able to get into that facility in the normal hours of nine to five.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Thanks again for having us here, and thanks for your work. It's wonderful to be in Regina.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you.

Mr. Weir, you have seven minutes, please.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

I'd like to welcome the committee and our witnesses to Regina. I'm not sure if I can do quite as good a job as the chair of making a personal connection with every witness, but as a local MP I feel I should make the effort.

I attended the University of Regina with Mr. McEachern from SUMA. I've met frequently with SARM, and once worked in the municipal affairs department of the Government of Saskatchewan. I'm also a former staff economist with the Canadian Labour Congress.

I'll start with you, Mr. Lafleur. You mentioned that you were going to highlight two of your recommendations for Canada Post. You talked about the role it could play in moving toward a low-carbon economy as well as the potential for postal banking. I was very interested that SARM also endorsed that concept of providing financial services from postal outlets.

I wonder if there are other aspects of the CLC's recommendations that you'd like to present to us.

[Donald Lafleur]

Generally talking about services, definitely we would be opposed to closures of more post offices. If anybody thinks that the government's closing of urban post offices would not be followed by closures—that have already been happening for years, as a matter of fact—of rural post offices, in my opinion that person is dreaming in Technicolor, because one will lead to the other.

The same goes for door-to-door delivery. I talked a bit about it here. We're for bringing back door-to-door delivery. Letter carriers and rural mail carriers are the face of the post office. It's not just a service issue; it's a financial viability issue.

When the customers see us coming to the door, they talk to us and they use the services. When we're delivering to super-mailboxes, they see the UPS person and the FedEx person come to their door, and we're no longer there. If we lose door-to-door delivery in cities, we're going to lose lot-line delivery in rural areas as well. Those are services.

Generally speaking, improved services would be at the top of the list, and also maintaining good jobs.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

On this point about services, it seems that the government's task force is really pushing in the direction of more franchising, but one of the points we've heard in a number of places is that the quality of service isn't as good at franchise outlets as it is at Canada Post corporate outlets. I wonder how that squares with your experience.

[Donald Lafleur]

That's definitely true. Whether you're talking rural or urban areas, if you look at it from the perspective of official languages, every year the numbers show that service in both official languages is lacking in private outlets. Our members in the Canadian Union of Postal Workers who provide retail services tell us that most of the complaints they get from the customers are about the franchises down the street.

Let's just look at the jobs. Look at the jobs in the Shoppers Drug Marts: minimum wage, no pension, precarious work versus good-paying jobs with a pension, retirement, uniforms. I won't get into all the details. This has been happening for a few decades now.

That's good for the economy and that's good for society all across this country. We have enough precarious jobs out there. To this day, it's a major problem in Canada and many parts of the world. If you take away door-to-door delivery everywhere, that's another 8,000 jobs gone. That's 8,000 people in the future who will be in precarious work instead of good jobs. That is not good for the Canadian economy.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Thank you.

I'm glad you addressed the concern about the solvency deficit in Canada Post's pension plan. Of course, that's a type of accounting that may make sense in the private sector, or a company could go bankrupt and have to pay out all of its pension obligations at once, but that certainly won't be the case with Canada Post. It will always have employees contributing to the pension plan, and as I think you noted, on a going concern basis it's actually in surplus. I think your recommendation of exempting Canada Post from solvency valuation makes a lot of sense.

Another witness who suggested that idea was a pensions expert who argued that we should exempt Canada Post from solvency valuation only if its pension were put into joint trusteeship. I wonder what you think about that idea. Is that something that a postal workers union might have an interest in?

[Donald Lafleur]

I can't remember exactly what year, but it has been a demand of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers in previous rounds of negotiations. It wasn't in recent years, but in the early 2000s we had those types of demands.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Okay. It probably makes sense anyway to exempt it from solvency valuation, but if it were a requirement that exemption be combined with joint trusteeship, you don't see that as really being any kind of obstacle for the workforce?

[Donald Lafleur]

No. What you're talking about there is already a reality, as I mentioned, at the provincial level.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Certainly that's correct, and it's a very good point.

In terms of the role that Canada Post could play in moving towards a low-carbon economy, I wonder if you could just elaborate a little bit on what it would mean to develop the infrastructure to support green vehicles at Canada Post locations across the country.