Mr. Speaker, I am delighted the previous member mentioned people being happy to get birthday cards and gifts. Today, my partner, Melissa, is celebrating her birthday. She has received some lovely cards and gifts through the mail and she quite enjoyed that.
I want to congratulate the Liberal member for Oak Ridges—Markham for bringing forward this important motion to help protect and speak up for rural people and the services they receive. He said it very eloquently when he said that mail delivery was fundamental to our national identity.
During the last campaign, I went to a house in my riding on Rainbow Crescent in a subdivision called Crestview where the women talked extensively about bringing back the rural post office. She said that it was important and that a post office was not just a building but an institution in the community. She said that it helps create and strengthen the community and that it is a meeting place for people. People go every day, pick up their mail and talk to their friends. For retired people, it is perhaps one of the highlights of their day, one of the only days they get to meet and talk to people as they go to their post office, a number of which have now been closed.
This women was passionate about the rural post offices. She outlined how important they were as a showcase for the communities. When people travel from around the world to our communities, the first welcome they receive is often the post office because they are mailing cards home. The post office is their first interaction with Canadians in the local communities, which is why post offices are so important and why they should not be abandoned.
We might reflect today on how many people use the post office as that type of community-building, friendly institution, a gathering place that it once was. There are certainly Canadians, such as the lady I was talking about, who would like to have that back.
So people do not leave out the north, I would also like to talk about a specific aspect that is very important for the north related to rural mail that is not the same for the rest of Canada, and that is the food mail. This is a program that subsidizes by mail perishables and essential foods for the health of northerners. This food is flown in.
Northerners quite often have very high expenses. The price of food in the far north is so expensive that if these prices occurred in the south, there would be tens of thousands of personal bankruptcies. The prices are incredibly exorbitant. Just imagine how many young children would be deprived of nutritional foods if there were not this subsidy. It is very important that this subsidy continue and that it be expanded to ensure it covers the healthy foods. Otherwise, junk foods and whatever is the cheapest by bulk is what will be fed to these children and they will be very unhealthy.
The program cannot be taken advantage of by the retailers. The savings need to be passed on to the children and the families that are getting this food mail subsidy for essential nutritious foods for the far north, into places where one can only fly.
Before I get into the rural routes in more depth, it is important to stand up for rural Canadians. We certainly need to do this in Parliament because there are so few parliamentarians from rural areas that we need to ensure our voices are heard. I know that in our government we had started the rural secretariat and made some tremendous initiatives for rural people.
We also had the rural lens where every program and every initiative brought forward by government had to go through a rural lens. We will be looking forward to the government putting the initiatives it brings forward through that rural lens so rural people are always thought of and not discriminated against by laws. What I will be looking for, and the government can be prepared for questions, is the annual report that deputy ministers need to provide of how they have implemented the rural lens, and what initiatives they have taken in each of their departments, every federal department and institution, to help and to accommodate rural people to ensure their programs and services are the best possible.
I will now go over some of the problems of various rural routes. Not everyone is having trouble with rural routes or their rural post offices. For example, residents of Whitney, Ontario still have a rural post office but the Toronto-Dominion Bank will be closing in a couple of weeks. This is the only bank in the town. We need to stand up for rural Canadians to ensure they do not lose such services.
Fortunately, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Transport who is responsible for Canada Post have met with the head of Canada Post. During the first hour of debate on this motion, the member for Perth—Wellington said:
That is why the minister, as well as the Prime Minister, has directed Canada Post to maintain good quality service to all rural residents.
All rural residents who are listening may be well assured that the Prime Minister and the minister responsible for Canada Post have guaranteed that the service will be good. If rural residents do not receive good service, they should write to the Minister of Transport and the Prime Minister because they have guaranteed this service.
I want to talk about one aspect of this motion where more detail may be put in when it gets to committee. I would first like to give two quotes just to outline my concern. First, the member for Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel said:
The elderly and people with disabilities who live in rural locations and are used to getting their mail delivered at home in their own mailboxes will have to leave home to get their mail.
I am now on the part of the motion relating to rural routes where mail drivers who had previously driven the mail to rural residents will no longer be doing it for safety reasons or whatever .
The second quote is from the proponent of the bill, the member for Oak Ridges—Markham, who said:
This stoppage in mail delivery has been particularly troublesome for a visually impaired customer who can no longer walk to the end of his driveway to get his mail. Another customer is physically disabled and it was not easy for him to retrieve his mail because his temporary mailbox was too high for him to reach. As well, as if it is not bad enough for the elderly, some of their temporary boxes are at ankle level. This presents a safety hazard in itself as they bend to get their mail.
I do not think there is anyone in the House who would agree with that kind of treatment being given to disabled or elderly people.
It is one thing if able-bodied, young or middle aged people are driving to work everyday and can pick up their mail at a box, but it is another thing if elderly or disabled people are faced with the huge burden of picking up their mail somewhere else. This could also be considered a danger to society. We just need to think about elderly people who live in rural Canada having to drive their vehicles onto an icy highway in order to get their pension cheques. Their vision might not be as good as it was when they were younger. Maybe when they are driving on that icy highway they cannot stop on the ice and they hit a speeding car coming from another direction.
Why would we force elderly people or disabled people to go out every day when in the past they did not have to? The dangers to themselves and others by having to pull onto these highways from rural side roads could be far more costly than having Canada Post make arrangements for the elderly and the disabled to have their mail delivered to their homes. As this motion progresses, I hope this particular aspect can be looked at.
I mentioned that the Prime Minister and the Minister of Transport had met with the head of Canada Post. We asked at that time to have a report of that meeting and the details of what was covered. We would very much like to have that report so we know progress is being made in improving mail service to rural Canadians.