No, it's not a convenient pickup. I think I said no. I had a choice.
If I may, I don't want to sound defensive. If we're falling down on the job on the execution side, I want to hear about that, and I'm going to do everything I can to make sure we're not, but I just want to correct something.
You may not know, Mr. Scott, that yes, I knew that in the 840,000 points of call, I probably have 20% of them that are unsafe as a result of urban sprawl and traffic. I didn't know which ones. It was proactive work in Fredericton. I took the National Research Council criteria we have and I went into Fredericton and we surveyed that whole rural area and now we know, but before we had a chance--and this working with our union--to do just exactly what you have said and what we have been doing in other parts of the country, one employee decided on that route he wasn't delivering the mail. When that happens, the first thing I want to say is I apologize to you and to the people in your constituency who were inconvenienced by that right to refuse work.
When I'm told on Monday morning--your office actually knows from my office that same day because that's how the community outreach program works--that there's a refusal to work, right there on the spot I have only two alternatives. I can hold the mail--and there may be cheques in that mail--or I can use the communication means available to me--letters, the airwaves, whatever--to tell people that there are two post offices, and it's not great, but we're going to put your mail there for now, and we're going to come into your community. I have a team on the ground, as we speak, in your community and we're going to talk to you, the inconvenienced clients of Canada Post, and have your thoughts about where we can put a collective safe delivery point that will be more convenient than this emergency stopgap measure.
I assure you, Mr. Scott, that yes, in some cases, depending on the geography and on the time of the year, it is going to take me six months. If I get a refusal to work in northern Canada in February, it's going to take me sometimes six weeks to get a better solution in hand.