Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you members of the committee. I greatly appreciate the opportunity to be here today.
My name is David Druker, and I'm the president of MBEC Communications, which is the licence-holder for the franchise operations of the UPS Store in Canada. We are a network of approximately—at last count, since I think we opened another store today—365 full-service retail locations offering multi-carrier services. We exist, basically, to assist consumers, small businesses, and Canadians in finding the right solution to serve their carrier shipment needs. We also do printing and some other business support services. We're really an easy one-stop location. The franchisees are all generally individual Canadian families supporting their own businesses. It's really a small-business organization supporting small business in Canada.
Most recently, going back about four years in the United States, they have successfully done pairings whereby the U.S. Postal Service parcel shipment options are available at the UPS stores in the United States, and that has been beneficial for both parties. It has created an easy solution for consumers and small businesses to find the appropriate selective service that they require for their individual needs.
We are a multi-carrier in nature. We are basically agnostic as to which carrier it goes through; currently we offer DHL, Canpar, UPS, obviously, and Loomis, and we offer different courier packages. Historically speaking, we were previously Mail Boxes Etc. and there was a rebrand done with a brand affiliation with UPS. UPS is our preferred carrier based on the brand association, but we are an independent organization of independent franchisees—Canadians selling solutions to Canadians.
We have tried for several years—I would say a good eight plus—to have a dialogue with Canada Post as to the mutual benefit of offering these services, and we have not to date been able to get very far with that. So given the recent suggestions that Canada Post is looking at new ways of expanding its business, expanding its product offerings to Canadians, and expanding what it does, we believe that our locations offer the ability to put parcels into the Canada Post carrier network.
We currently do, at retail, approximately $35 million to $45 million of parcel service, and we believe that Canada Post could benefit from some of that volume.