Mr. Speaker, the motion now before the House proposing the privatization of the post office can be based on myth only, and we on this side of the House prefer to deal with the facts.
The mover of the motion presumes that Canada Post is an inefficient, money losing organization and a drain on the Canadian taxpayer. In fact, Canada Post has achieved a considerable turnaround in its operations and finances. It is self-sufficient and since 1988 no longer receives appropriations from government.
The mover of the motion presumes that Canada Post is an inefficient organization that did not adapt to the realities of the marketplace. Wrong again. In fact, Canada Post has been improving continuously since becoming a crown corporation, with efficiency gains in all aspects of its operations.
It is most important to note the current mandate review, which the minister responsible for Canada Post announced on November 6 of this year. It has been ten years since the last major review of Canada Post. This review will give Canadians a chance to express their concerns about the corporation.
The review committee will also be analysing the current competitive environment of the corporation. The communications market has changed dramatically since the Marchment report, and it is time to review the effects on the corporation.
The mandate review will also review the functions that Canada Post currently carries out and those that should be provided in the future. In this regard, I want to deal with the allegations of cross-subsidization, which we have heard from couriers and others and most recently from the hon. member for Quebec East.
Let me emphasize that Canada Post Corporation competes fairly. It does not subsidize its services. These allegations have been reviewed by both the Bureau of Competition Policy and the National Transportation Agency. The Bureau of Competition Policy examined concerns with regard to cross-subsidization of Canada Post ad mail services with profits from letter mail and alleged predatory pricing. The bureau cleared Canada Post of the allegations in 1994.
The year before that, in 1993, along with the National Transportation Agency the bureau also reviewed the corporation's acquisition of 75 per cent of Purolator courier and the issues of unfair competition and cross-subsidization as they would relate to that purchase. The bureau found: "No grounds to believe that cross-subsidization would occur post-merger".
The hon. member putting forward the motion is not aware of the many other changes taking place at Canada Post. Canada Post knows technological innovation. In a world economy driven by ever changing business partnerships and alliances, technological innovation and convergence, there remains the crucial need for a reliable, efficient, dedicated postal administration.
Canadians want a faster, more reliable, and lower cost postal administration. Throughout its history Canada has always been quick to embrace these demands. Canada Post has worked hard to meet its mandate to provide service to every Canadian.
Between 1992 and 1994, pieces of mail processed per hour increased by 64 per cent. Delivery points per hour increased by 30 per cent. All this was accomplished with a workforce that was reduced by 24 per cent. These are the facts, something the Reform Party does not seem to be acquainted with.
Since incorporation there have been many innovations Canada Post can be very proud of, such as the national control centre, which allows end to end monitoring of performance. The first system for tracking and tracing also has been developed. This system accurately pinpoints the progress of your mail. The corporation has also developed a new technology for hybrid services, which can electronically send your document, print it, and have it mailed. This is available to all Canadians.
Would a private corporation offer this accessible service to all-I underline all-Canadians? This is something the opposition has not considered.
Good service means accessibility to retail services. In the mid-1980s Canada Post decided to experiment with franchising of postal outlets. This partnership with the private sector has resulted in an increased network of outlets where Canada Post products and services are available.
The Canada Post retail network currently consists of nearly 8,000 full service outlets, 4,150 corporate outlets, and more than 3,400 private sector outlets, supplemented by 11,000 stamp shops and agencies. Hours of access to postal products has increased substantially, while the cost of operations has been reduced. These outlets had a combined earned retail revenue in 1994-95 of $1.8 billion.
The franchising of retail postal services provides key solutions to four critical problems that were faced by Canada Post: how to obtain necessary capital; how to restructure and expand the retail customer service network; how to move quickly to a customer focused workforce; and how to reduce the high cost of a corporate retail network.
The franchising of postal service brought benefits to not only Canada Post but, more important, to Canadians, rural and urban. Franchising has nearly doubled the size of the postal network, offering consumers over 3,000 additional service centres across Canada. Canada Post's franchising and retail postal service has been a success. It is evident that Canada Post is constantly improving and adapting. Why should that be changed?
Canada has entered a new electronic era. Should Canada Post be involved in this electronic era? In the government's upcoming mandate review one of the terms of reference is whether CPC should be free to react to advances in technological alternatives to mail. If so, what would be the implications for the users, namely the government, the public and CPC competitors? This should make the opposition happy. We look forward to hearing the results.
The future contribution of postal administration in the new electronic environment will be contingent on the answers to some very basic questions. What is and will be the role for a postal administration as a public service? Is there a role for a postal administration as an electronics intermediary and as a provider of security services in electronic messaging? Can letter mail be delivered still faster and more cheaply? How much commercial freedom should a postal administration have?
The volume of physical mail in Canada is still marginally increasing from year to year. However, it will significantly decrease as electronic messaging takes hold. Over time, the labour intensive infrastructure required to process physical mail will be transformed to handle more electronic messaging. The transformation from hard copy to electronic will take time, however, more than most people predict, and for good reason. There is a multi-million dollar investment in the interlink physical mail infrastructures of Canada Post and its customers, and it will take an enormous investment to go completely electronic.
The immediate future is a bridge the corporation calls hybrid, which allows messages to be submitted to CPC electronically, travel electronically to the closest point of delivery, then be printed and delivered in hard copy. It is in this area that CPC's new electronic services are concentrated. It is the belief of many that a hybrid environment will be with us for a very long time.
Canada Post's concentration on hybrid services is allowing it to greatly increase its efficiency. Expansion of these services is vital to its customers, not only to contain or reduce costs but to allow the transaction of business effectively in a global marketplace using electronic data interchange, EDI, and hybrid data interchange, HDI. This obvious change in the face of technology has allowed Canada Post to remain competitive. Canada Post is doing much more than perhaps the hon. member is aware.
Business and governments need to share information with their clients in the form of documents or reports. Maintaining physical copies of documents and distributing them is costly, environmentally damaging and does not add value to the economy. Working further to reduce costs and speed up delivery, CPC has developed a service that stores documents and delivers them through a 1-800 telephone line. The documents can be delivered by fax, E-mail or regular mail. This service reduces business costs, speeds delivery of information and avoids environmental impacts of printing and storing an abundance of physical documents.
Canada Post presently has a physical directory of all addresses in Canada which it must maintain to deliver mail, including postal codes for efficient mail sortation. It is extending this directory to include electronic addresses and other information which Canadian businesses and governments can access for effective communication in the medium of the receiver's choice.
This will take the form of hard copy, telephone, fax, computer, E-mail, telex and even interactive television in the future. The directory will reduce the cost of doing business, improve the speed of messaging and enable a sender to reach the receiver regardless of technological-