Evidence of meeting #5 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was communities.
A recording is available from Parliament.
2:25 p.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
But what are the mandates—the Canada Post act and then a direction from the federal government? Are there separate mandates from them?
2:25 p.m.
Interim Chief Operating Officer, Canada Post Corporation
Our dual mandate is to provide universal service to all Canadians and Canadian businesses—
2:25 p.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Is there direction from the federal government that's keeping you from perhaps attaining your second mandate, which is fiscal sustainability?
2:25 p.m.
Interim Chief Operating Officer, Canada Post Corporation
I'm not aware of any, and I don't have specifics around that.
2:25 p.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Okay.
I want to chat about some of the rural service. We're hearing in Alberta of difficulties getting service, whether it's in the larger rural towns of 10,000 or 20,000 or the smaller ones. There are problems where people have to drive three or four hours.
Can you give us some feedback on what's causing that? Is it inability or difficulty in hiring staff? Is it problems from COVID, from people calling in sick? I know that the workforces are not large to begin with at a rural post office. Can you fill us in on some of these issues? How much is a serious systemic issue and how much is just because of the circumstances happening right now?
2:25 p.m.
Interim Chief Operating Officer, Canada Post Corporation
As I said, last year we went through three waves of COVID and managed through our contingencies and of course our employees stepping up every step of the way to maintain service and even to improve service. This latest wave of COVID has been more challenging, as it has been for every company in Canada in every corner of Canada. We—
2:25 p.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Is it more omicron than it is difficulty hiring people in the rural areas?
2:25 p.m.
Interim Chief Operating Officer, Canada Post Corporation
For us, it's definitely more omicron right now.
2:25 p.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
In Alberta the case counts are dropping, as we are seeing across the country, thank heaven. Is there a sense that we're getting back to regular service? Again, what we're hearing from the rural areas—
2:25 p.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
It's difficult, I understand, but we're hearing very difficult stories from them of long drives to get service, etc. Are we going to come out of that, or is this the new reality for the rural areas?
2:25 p.m.
Interim Chief Operating Officer, Canada Post Corporation
It's not the new reality for rural areas. In fact, since the peak of the second week of January in terms of the number of cases in our operations, where people had to either quarantine or be away from work because they had contracted COVID, we have seen, since that worst week, a gradual reduction of those cases. Gradually people are returning to work.
I would say, from what I've seen nationally, there has been about a 30% improvement in people—
2:30 p.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
[Technical difficulty—Editor] difficulty in hiring postmasters for the rural areas?
2:30 p.m.
Interim Chief Operating Officer, Canada Post Corporation
Staffing has been and continues to be a challenge not just in rural Canada, but in urban Canada as well. For the most part, we've been successful. We have a process that we follow, and typically we are successful in staffing our post offices. There have been rare occasions where a postmaster has retired and—
2:30 p.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Is it more COVID.... I'm sorry. To summarize, they're more COVID-related, these issues we've seen in the last couple of years?
2:30 p.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
I want to get back to—I know it's out of your control—the poll that everyone's talking about. Have you been presented with the results of that?
2:30 p.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Okay.
On the Canada Post debt, I think you were allowed a debt ceiling of $2.5 billion. What are you at now and when are you going to hit that debt ceiling?
2:30 p.m.
Interim Chief Operating Officer, Canada Post Corporation
I don't have the specifics on that, but we will make sure that we provide them to the committee.
2:30 p.m.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Okay. I think I'm out of time.
Thanks for your feedback.