Evidence of meeting #53 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 post.
A video is available from Parliament.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
I'm sure you can sell them RRSPs and everything else by email.
For any of the three of you, I want to go back to postal banking where the idea is the post office agents by themselves would act as the banker when they're not selling stamps or whatever. We saw a report that says you need a full-time manager at every outlet. Is even having two feasible for the work required, either from payday lending or for a credit union?
4:10 p.m.
Senior Policy Advisor, Canadian Credit Union Association
Do you mean individuals? I'm not sure.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
What came up from this study was the idea to have Canada Post do postal banking. The person who is already there doing the post office work will also act as the banker as well. The report says having one isn't feasible, that you'll need a manager at every outlet doing that. Are even two feasible?
4:10 p.m.
Senior Policy Advisor, Canadian Credit Union Association
I'm out of my depth answering that.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
4:10 p.m.
Senior Policy Advisor, Canadian Credit Union Association
Yes, I know of one.
4:15 p.m.
Vice-President, Finance, Risk and Prudential Policy, Canadian Bankers Association
That's an interesting question. The question I would have is what is the traffic flow going to look like in that case? Is this person literally going to switch hats back and forth on a customer by customer basis, selling financial products to one and then providing postal services to the next one who comes in the door? What is the client experience going to look like?
4:15 p.m.
Vice-President, Finance, Risk and Prudential Policy, Canadian Bankers Association
I have to wonder what that customer experience would look like.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
I was just asking the practicality of it.
Mr. Irwin, do you have any shops with just two people?
4:15 p.m.
President, Canadian Consumer Finance Association
Sure. There probably are some, but, again, it would depend on where they are and what the traffic is like. Some times of the day and some days of the week, that simply would not work. I echo some of the comments of my colleague.
4:15 p.m.
A voice
There would be security issues, too.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Okay.
You've come up with a number, that 98% of Canadians have bank accounts. StatsCan shows that 81% of Canadians live in cities, so that's 81% who have easy access. Where does the 98% come from?
4:15 p.m.
Vice-President, Finance, Risk and Prudential Policy, Canadian Bankers Association
Ninety-nine per cent is from the World Bank.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
Brenda Shanahan Liberal Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC
When we were on the road, we often posed the question to the witnesses, regardless of their background: Do you see Canada Post as being a business or a service? Very often the answer we got was a combination of the two, which makes a lot of sense, of course. It's an essential service, but it needs to be sustainable as a business. Then it's up for grabs whether the dividend should be paid out or the money reinvested.
Stemming out of it being an essential service is the idea of a community hub. That would be especially useful in these rural and remote areas, but also in inner cities there's a market as well, where other services could be provided. It could be passport services, or something that's dear to my heart, which is income tax preparation, especially as we go forward and that becomes, I hope, a lot easier.
I was very interested to hear what Vancity was doing as far as financial literacy goes. Very often people are just not aware of the GST rebate and that kind of thing. They don't fill out their income tax. They head over to the payday lender, because that's the easiest and closest service that they have, and they're in that debt spiral.
Members of the panel, I would like to hear your comments on the idea of a community hub. In other words, what do you think of Canada Post leveraging probably its biggest asset, which is this coast to coast to coast distribution network that it has?
Maybe we could start with Mr. Irwin.
4:15 p.m.
President, Canadian Consumer Finance Association
I think it's something our organization hasn't necessarily spent a lot of time thinking about. I'd certainly undertake to get back to you with any thoughts we have.
Briefly, I would say that if there's a way to leverage existing resources to be able to provide services that people need, that's always important and should be looked at. Our members are always looking at ways we can continue to serve our customers. Income tax preparation is something some of our members do as well. It started as an industry that cashed cheques, and then it evolved into lending. Now it's evolved into more things beyond that. Whatever the case may be of the customer, whether they can't find those services where they live, or whatever the case is, our members are always trying to step in and figure out ways to fill that gap.
If there is one message I would like to convey today, it is that the industry I represent is a lot more than what you think it is, or what a lot of people think it is, which is that loan for a few hundred dollars that's repaid the next payday. We do a lot more than that, and we try to do it in the best way we can.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
Brenda Shanahan Liberal Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC
Okay, but you do need to make a profit while you're doing it.
4:15 p.m.
Vice-President, Finance, Risk and Prudential Policy, Canadian Bankers Association
The question is an interesting one. In many respects, it's more a real estate question than a banking question, which is, if I'm Canada Post, how do I take my existing real estate assets and repurpose them or at least reorganize them in some way so that I can leverage them off on, depending upon the location, different relationships.
Conceptually, is that a good idea? It's certainly something I would explore if I were Canada Post, because they have a substantial real estate asset.
There's not a lot more I can say about it than that, other than I can see the attractiveness of looking at that from Canada Post's perspective.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
4:15 p.m.
Senior Policy Advisor, Canadian Credit Union Association
I can't add any more to what Darren said. Those are pretty much my thoughts.
