Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre has brought this issue to a debate. It is good because it has focused on certain things that ought to have been focused on for quite some time. It is not a new idea. It has been around for a long time. The bill does focus our attention on an issue that is rather significant.
I want to address the contracting procedure that is engaged in by Canada Post. The hon. parliamentary secretary gave a rather well reasoned speech this afternoon but avoided some of the problems that exist within the contracting procedure itself.
I have before me an affidavit sworn before a notary public in Alberta. I want to read part of it. It deals with the very issue I am talking about, the contracting procedure. It reads in part:
In April of 1996, I knew my contract with Canada Post Corporation would be expiring on June 30th. As I had done in the past, I decided to phone Contracting Services in Edmonton to see what they were going to do. I was hoping, as they had done in the past, just extend or renew it again.
I was talking to Lee Alexander. He asked me how long have I had the contract. I told him ten years. He then said they would have to tender out this route as a matter of course to show the public that I did not own it permanently. He told me to bid the exact amount I was being paid at the time and I would get it back for another five years.
After the tendering process was closed, I received a phone call from Lee Alexander. He said there were bids received lower than the one I submitted and would I drop my price to get the contract back?
I asked him how much was the lowest bid. He said they don't release that information. He again asked if I would go down or lose the contract. I said I could if I had to, but by how much would I have to down? Five hundred dollars? He said no, go down much more. I kept dropping and dropping until he finally said “okay, that's enough”. I ended up taking a cut of $5,077.08 per annum to keep my job.
It is scandalous to treat people like that, but that is what happened.
The RRMCs is a reliable, resourceful, friendly and independent group of people. I admire these couriers. Our mail is delivered by a rural route mail courier, a wonderful person. They love freedom. They love enterprise. This lady loves to be independent and I agree. I am an entrepreneur and enjoy that freedom and independence. I believe they have been treated shabbily. In some cases I dare say the treatment has been disgraceful.
The question now before us is: Will eliminating subsection 13(5) of the Canada Postal Corporation Act be the best response to the problem? Can the problem be resolved? Of course it can. I clearly understand the frustration and the anger of the RRMCs. No one should be treated as some of them have been treated. I am not suggesting they have all been treated this way. I do not know, but I know that some of them have been treated very badly.
The contracts were awarded and then negotiated after they were awarded. Mr. Speaker, you have been a businessman for many years. Many of us have been in business. We do not negotiate contracts after they are awarded. We negotiate them before.
The process was secret. In this case the particular mail courier was told there was another bid. He was not told how much that bid was or whether there really was a bid. He does not know to this day whether there really was a bid or how much it was. He was simply told to drop his price. When it was not enough he was told to drop it a little more. It was not an isolated case. I have only the one affidavit, but a number of them have told me that this is the situation.
Pressure was exerted to lower the bid. Conditions, or whatever else the supervisor wanted, became negotiable items after the contract was signed. Some couriers were coerced into submitting a tender they felt was unreasonable, but due to personal conditions or requirements they went along with it. In some cases whole lifestyles had to be changed.
The playing field was unfair, capricious, unstable and often unreasonable. A question has to be asked in this regard. If it was so bad why did they stay? I think one of the reasons was that for them it was a lifestyle, something the family was used to, a second income or a variety of indications.
The issue is not whether it is a second income or whether it is subsidiary to something else. The question is whether the contract is fair, honest and above board, and does everyone know what are the conditions. That is the principal issue.
They stayed because it gave them flexibility. They did not have to punch a clock. They did not have to do things exactly the way someone else told them to. They could exercise their own initiatives and resourcefulness in applying their own innovations. Many of them, I suggest all of them, liked their neighbours and the social contact as they went from delivery post to delivery post. They were proud and they still are.
They say with pride that the mail must go through no matter what the weather or road conditions. They are proud to live by that. To overcome these problems is a challenge to them and they like that. I commend them for it and have great respect for them.
Repealing subsection 13(5) of the Canada Post Corporation Act would eliminate the quality of independence of the entrepreneur. They would become employees.
It would take away the flexibility these people enjoy today both on the RRMC side and on the Canada Post side. Clearly it would do away with that. It would do away with a way of life. It would become a job. It would take away their sense of personal freedom, flexibility and opportunity to exercise their initiative, their innovativeness and their resourcefulness. It would make them employees, not contractors or entrepreneurs.
What could be proposed as an alternative to eliminating section 13(5)? Clearly it is better to do something else than to eliminate that clause. The hon. parliamentary secretary said that removing that clause would apply to a lot more than just the RRMCs. It would apply to a whole host of other contractors doing business with Canada Post.
What needs to happen is that the contracting procedure must be changed. It has to become fair, open and transparent. Everybody should understand before they bid what they are bidding on. The bidding should be open and then on the day the contracts are to be awarded or opened everybody would know exactly what bids are on the table and what the conditions are. Then they could move ahead. All coercion must be removed. There should be absolutely no way in which the bidding procedure could be interfered with by some kind of a supervisor.
There is some indication there is a movement in that direction. I have a letter from the hon. André Ouellet, chairman of Canada Post, in which he indicates clearly some of the things that have been done. It does not go far enough. He is moving in some directions but not nearly adequately in my opinion.
Unless Canada Post changes and implements a whole new contracting procedure and gets a contract that is fair, open and similar for couriers in a particular region, it will invite continued pressure by the RRMCs to do the kind of thing the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre has presented to us. I do not believe it is the best solution, but I fear that unless Canada Post has a better relationship with its rural route mail couriers and gets into a contracting procedure that is fair and honest, it will simply invite more of this kind of thing.
There appears to be a movement toward solving some of the contractual process problems. Let us not do this now and slam the door shut before they have a chance to improve their relations.