Government Operations Committee on Oct. 21st, 2016

[Nelson Leong]

No, not really.

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

I'll go over it. The question is for Ms. Lyons as well.

The five points are: the conversion from door-to-door delivery to community mailboxes, a new approach to pricing, the set-up of franchise post offices—in pharmacies, for instance—streamlining operations, and addressing labour costs.

We have heard from a lot of witnesses on those various points. Some were in favour and some were opposed.

Could you tell me how you feel about those measures put forward by Canada Post?

[Maureen June Winnicki Lyons]

If I may, I would like to speak about the community mailboxes first.

Leaving all sense of politics aside, personally I was relieved when the plan to transition completely to community mailboxes was abandoned, because I have a physical disability. For me to have to go to my community mailbox or to go as far as a postal counter to pick up my parcel is just not feasible.

Extrapolating from my own personal experience, I think many of my customers, who I can see are grandparents or parents with very young children, buy from me not because of my great prices or my shiny smiling face, but because it's too hard for them to get out to go search for exactly what they want, and that's a strength of my business. I sell toys that people need because kids want them for their birthdays or for special occasions. The harder it is for my customers to get what they need from me, the more I'm at a disadvantage.

For that reason—and I know that's not a feeling that many eBay sellers share because of their own personal circumstances, so that's sort of a touchy point—but for me personally, I was happy to see that stay as it is because I have door-to-door delivery and I would be very distressed if that were to be eliminated from my neighbourhood.

Again, I know that's not something that all eBay sellers agree on, because I would have to say that most eBay sellers, who live in areas where they don't have door-to-door access themselves, don't see it as necessary. They see it as something completely expendable because they don't use it themselves and they just see it as a giant expense, but for me, it's a big deal.

Regarding the second part, the postal counters, I can understand why rural areas would be very reluctant to see their post offices close because for them...I come from a small town—well, it's not that small and it's not that isolated or far from Winnipeg. It's Beausejour. The post office there is a necessary fixture of the community. If they were to lose it in favour of having a Canada Post outlet opened at one of the drugstores, I know their service probably wouldn't change for the most part, but their sense of community would suffer.

For my mailings, I use my closest postal counter. It's an authorized agent, and I find them to be friendly and relatively well informed, although there have been times when I've been a little frustrated. I tend to try to keep on top of what's happening with Canada Post and postal problems, so I do find it a little bit frustrating when I have to go to the counter and tell the people who work there what they should be telling me.

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Ms. Lyons, that actually brings me to my next question. Right now, there is a moratorium on Canada Post office closures. In this committee, on a number of occasions, we have heard the following proposal from witnesses. It was an interesting suggestion.

As you may know, urban centres have grown significantly in the past decades. A number of Canada Post offices are now in the suburbs of major cities where five post offices are serving those very same suburbs.

For instance, my colleague from Edmonton said that he was able to see about 20 post offices in five minutes by car.

Do you think it would be useful to end the moratorium on the office closures in order to close those in urban centres? That might generate savings to keep the post offices in rural regions.

[Maureen June Winnicki Lyons]

As someone who has lived in a rural community—a couple of rural communities, as a matter of fact—and who has spent the last 20 years, for the most part, living in Winnipeg, I don't even think I could tell you, with all positivity, where our closest urban postal outlet is, the actual Canada Post office. I think it's someplace in Saint Boniface. I've never been to it.

I wouldn't miss it. If it could keep rural ones open, I think it would be well worth it; I really do. I could see there also being the opportunity for those rural offices to become something more than they are right now, offering other services or potentially renting out space to different levels of government, to become a hub for the community. I really do think it would be well worth keeping those rural ones open.

[Alupa Clarke, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

In 2013, when Canada Post implemented the community mailboxes measure in a number of municipalities, did you see or notice any changes in your company's sales? Did you notice a direct impact on your company?

[Maureen June Winnicki Lyons]

Did I see that in 2013? No.

I rely on what Canada Post tracking tells me about who is receiving their mail and where. I would have to say, according to tracking, that 90% of my Canadian customers get their parcels delivered to their door. There's a different final message on the tracking item line that shows when it's been delivered to a community mailbox. From that information, I have extrapolated that only 10% of my customers actually use a community mailbox.

I have been told by other eBay sellers that it's naive of me to believe that, because the drivers don't always enter the proper code when they're delivering something, so having that final line say it's been delivered to a mailbox is not necessarily the indicator that it was. This is coming from eBay sellers who are also consumers of Canada Post and who order online, who say they get all their mail delivered to a community mailbox, yet when their tracking shows it's delivered, it doesn't necessarily show it as having been delivered that way.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

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

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you very much.

Some of the discussion has revolved around the services you think we might be able to cut in order to save other services. I'm wondering if either of you has ideas about what other kinds of services Canada Post might be able to offer that would be useful to you and would help generate other revenue for the corporation.

[Nelson Leong]

I don't know a lot about the operations within Canada Post.

Having a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt background, I know there are a lot of opportunities wherever you go. Canada Post needs to put those practices in place and look at the whole operation.

That's the only comment I can make.

[Maureen June Winnicki Lyons]

I'm afraid I don't know. I would love to be able to provide some really meaningful input for you that way. The only thing I can say is, unfortunately, to the negative.

For a few reasons, I would worry if Canada Post, specifically the authorized dealers, were to start offering postal banking. One is that the workers being hired by the franchise don't always know as much about the services as they could. The second is from a customer point of view. If I'm standing in line behind somebody who's buying so much as a money order, it makes me want to stab myself in the eye with my car keys, because it takes so long to process. To add postal banking to that, really meaningful banking, would be disastrous from a customer service standpoint unless they could somehow expand their employee base.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Leong, you mentioned that you use Canada Post for rural communities where you have customers because no one else is willing to go there. Do you want to speak a little bit more to the importance of Canada Post services for those rural communities?

[Nelson Leong]

Yes. Whenever our customers ask for Canada Post, they're always ecstatic to hear that they're able to deliver in those rural areas.

Whenever we approach Purolator, FedEx, or UPS, they get there faster, sure, but unfortunately, when there is no one in the house to deliver the mukluks to, they're very inconvenienced. Then some of these people have to travel 20 or 30 kilometres just to get their $200 mukluks, and that's very inconvenient.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

For instance, in terms of there being a role to provide service to rural communities, in the case of postal banking, we know about your customers who may also struggle to receive banking services. Do you think there might be merit in providing those services through their local post offices?

[Nelson Leong]

There could be, yes.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Okay.

I also want to speak to the nature of having a public post office. Here we are in a parliamentary committee, and if there are issues that have to do with Canada Post, you have an opportunity to air them and help put pressure on Canada Post. Do you guys see value in that? Have you had a better experience with Canada Post than, say, private...? Whether it's UPS or FedEx, do you see Canada Post as more responsive, either from a direct customer perspective or because you know that if you don't get satisfaction, there are other ways to put pressure on Canada Post to provide better public service?

[Nelson Leong]

Our experience is that whenever there is a warranty or a return—we have hassle-free returns—Canada Post, by far, has been the one that is willing to return our products without any issues. In fact, they are pretty much the only ones that have no issues with returning products to us.

With Purolator, you have to go through hoops and almost go through a deal to get your product returned without any questions asked.

[Maureen June Winnicki Lyons]

I have to say absolutely yes. Every aspect of Canada Post is something that I appreciate, both as a consumer and as an online seller. I wouldn't be able to do what I do or live the way that I do in Canada without access to its services.

Any time that I've had something that has caused me frustration with Canada Post, I've called, because I'm not the kind of person who will sit idly by and not let it bother me. A number of times when I felt that the issue was something that was beyond the capabilities of the very friendly people who answer the phone, I was sent on to a supervisor, who did take the time to talk through the problem with me, and I feel that after the fact it probably did have some impact in changing things slightly within the system.

The example I'll give you has to do with small packets.

In the brief period of time between Canada Post eliminating liability insurance on small packets and actually offering tracked packets, I think there were maybe four to six weeks where those two things did not overlap. As a seller, I had—surprise, surprise—a rash of “item not received” claims against me. I found that very frustrating, because it left me holding the bag. I couldn't complain to Canada Post about how my customers hadn't received their parcels, and it was left to me to refund the buyer when I had done everything that I needed to do to get the parcel into the hands of Canada Post for delivery.

Those were international orders, obviously, and I can understand how things become complicated there, because they're being handed off to an entirely different postal system after going through customs, but the supervisor I spoke to within Canada Post seemed to really understand my concern about that lapse in time between there being liability insurance offered and a tracking service offered. As a seller, I felt that by handing over my parcel to Canada Post, the employees, if there were less than honest ones along the way, would know that there was literally no way for anybody to track it if things went missing, because Canada Post, as a corporation, would no longer care. It wasn't responsible. I don't mean literally “would no longer care”, but the potential for that was there.

Credit goes to that supervisor, who actually took the time to talk me through it, because I was feeling pretty heated at that point.

As I say, it wasn't just one time that this happened. There was a spell of them within a short period of a couple of weeks.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Madam Ratansi, for seven minutes, please.

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

I thank you all for coming here.

I think I'll continue on with what you've said, but first, what is the area of coverage for your customers? How big is it?

[Maureen June Winnicki Lyons]

Mine?

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

Yes.

[Maureen June Winnicki Lyons]

I limit my worldwide shipping to most of the places that are insurable by a third party insurer. It's all across Canada, including the rural communities and the remote northern communities where it's harder to actually go to a store and get what you might need for your kids. You turn to eBay or other online venues to satisfy those needs.

My international customers would be for the most part Europe, the U.K., and Australia. I've recently opened up to all of the countries that are serviced by Tracked Packet, because for me that tracking is important. In theory, I ship to 31 international destinations.

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

Okay.

Mr. Leong, would you comment?

[Nelson Leong]

For us it's coast to coast in Canada.