Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Thanks very much to all four gentlemen for being here.
Mr. Hanes and Mr. Brown, I was particularly moved by your testimony. There are now four and a half million Canadians living with a disability of one form or another. With an aging population, that number is rapidly increasing. As I mentioned earlier, about 10% to 11% of my own district now, of all my population, has one form of disability or another. I'm not sure to what extent this was factored in by Canada Post in its planning.
I was also very struck by your testimony about the connection between disability and poverty, which reminded me of the government's decision to eliminate the community access program, Mr. Chair, which was an Internet connectivity program in our public libraries that cost $10 million a year, one-quarter of what the government is spending now on economic action plan advertising every year. I was struck by the number of disabled citizens in the country who were previously accessing the Internet, because the Internet is expensive for people on ODSP in Ontario or those in other provinces, who go to libraries to be able to access the Internet and be connected.
But let me ask you, Mr. Hanes and Mr. Brown, were you consulted? Did Canada Post come to the Council of Canadians with Disabilities to seek input with respect to these changes?