Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to pick up where I left off with the loss of rural post offices and this trend that we're seeing of post offices going from Canada Post post offices to a contracted-out service to a mailbox at the side of the road.
I was talking to Carmen McPhee. She's the chief councillor of the Tahltan Band, one of the bands of the Tahltan Nation up in northern B.C. Some years ago, Canada Post contracted out the post office in Dease Lake to the Tahltan Band, which has been running it as a service to the community. It's not working out, because the amount that Canada Post is willing to pay through that contract is not enough to cover the cost of operating the post office, so the band is losing tens of thousands of dollars per year. When I talked to Chief McPhee, her desire was for Canada Post to take it back and re-establish a proper Canada Post post office in that community.
Now, based on your knowledge, when we look across Canada and see the loss of all these post offices, are we seeing any examples of contracted-out services, these retail franchises, going back to the Canada Post post office model, with a unionized postmaster and the costs covered by Canada Post? Is that something we're seeing? Is there a mechanism to return full services to communities where the contracted-out model isn't working, or is this a one-way trip to a community mailbox on the side of the road at -40° in two feet of snow and no way to buy stamps? What's your message for Chief McPhee?