Mr. Speaker, the hon. member suggests that to be self-reliant does not mean to make a profit. That is absolutely correct, but that is not the way it has been interpreted by the Minister of Finance, the Prime Minister, the Minister of Public Works and Government Services or the Minister of Industry. Each of these ministers has interpreted self-reliance to mean “make money and pay the dividend to the Government of Canada”. That is what they are supposed to do.
A crown corporation is a very unique creation. It is neither government, nor is it private. It is sort of a hybrid between those two. We need to look at some of the confusion that has resulted because of this situation. The crown corporations have confused their roles, goals, philosophy, management style and focus. Let us look at each of these in a little detail.
Concerning the roles and goals of crown corporations, they must ask themselves the following questions. Are we customer or client oriented, or are we politically oriented? Where is our primary focus: on the client or customer, or on our political master? What is our goal? This is the second area about which they are confused. Is our goal to fill a gap that is not being provided by the private sector, or is it to advance our profit prospects and compete directly with the private sector by expanding into businesses that are more lucrative? I have examples of each.
Concerning the philosophy of crown corporations, they must ask whether they believe they should serve the public, their customers and clients, to the best of their ability, or whether they should primarily look after the political interests of their shareholder, the government.
Concerning management style, they must ask whether their style is to be that of a consistent, compassionate team player in which employee and employer share in the pursuit of mutually beneficial corporate goals, or whether they are to be the strong arm of the government and say “This way or no way and, come hell or high water, like it or not, you are either going to do it my way or you are not going to do it at all”.
This was particularly evident in the most recent action by Canada Post to its postal franchisees. It started on April 1 by telling them this is what they were going to get. They did not like it. They found it to be troublesome. Canada Post delayed it until October 1. It said that it would hold a lot of consultation. It could not meet that goal, so it said that it would wait until December 1, which is tomorrow.
We still do not know what it is going to do. It went through the various consultations. I have talked to franchisees from across the country, from one end to the other, and every one of them said this was a one-way consultation: “This is the program. This is how you have to present it. This is how it is going to affect you”, with no particular change, unless there is a change happening today which we will hear about tomorrow.
That is not exactly in the interests of itself.