I am very glad to meet you today and to have this opportunity to ask you some questions.
In your career, you have had much experience with privatization and regulation. You are known as someone who applies drastic measures, in other words, some of your decisions have been rather draconian.
Let me mention a decision you made in 2005, which was to close down the Quebec mail sorting centre. At the time, 130,000 persons petitioned against this closure. Moreover, municipalities tabled some 1,000 resolutions to try and stop this decision by Canada Post, which was at the time your decision.
With regard to this decision, I would like to know whether you have a plan for downsizing. Why did you decide to implement downsizing in Quebec? You know that we have two centres, one in Quebec and one in Montreal, and that they serve 7.5 million people. Ontario has six centres for 12.5 million people. If you close down the Quebec centre, there will be a ratio of one centre for 7.5 million persons, whereas in Ontario, there will be one centre for 1.7 million persons. What is the rationale for this? Is this just or fair?
I know that you will tell me that no jobs were lost, but as far as I am concerned, I believe that jobs will be lost in the long term. You will tell us that the service would be just as good, but that is not what I want to know. Tell me, do you have a downsizing plan? Will you table it if you do? We already asked the minister for this in 2005. Now we are dealing with Minister Cannon. We want you to present a plan and to put a moratorium on your decision until this plan is made public.