Debates of Nov. 20th, 2007

Canada Post Corporation Act

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it would be to the member's advantage and certainly to the advantage of Canadians if he would take the opportunity to sit in on some of the standing committee meetings when we will be dealing with this particular piece of legislation.

What the letter was referring to was the lost opportunity that Canada Post did not have because Canada Post has not had this business for years. As a result of that, really there is no loss to it on a direct basis, only on a lost opportunity basis.

We are looking at what is best for Canadians, for Canadian consumers, and what is best for Canadian businesses. That is what this government is going to move forward with, what is best for Canadians.

[Louise Thibault, Independent, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with my two colleagues who asked questions. I am very surprised by the rather twisted logic used by the parliamentary secretary to present this issue.

If I understood correctly, at the beginning he said, “This government will not privatize Canada Post”.

And now he is saying that Canada Post did not have the revenue in the first place, so it is not losing anything.

What interests me and people from my region, my riding and throughout Quebec is the fact that more money would perhaps mean more services.

As is currently the case in rural areas, there are safety restrictions for employees and there is a lack of revenue to keep post office boxes close to people in rural areas.

To meet employee safety needs, post office boxes must be further away, and we are racking our brains to find solutions. I must give credit to the Canada Post workers in my area who are doing their best.

But I would like the parliamentary secretary to tell us why more revenues in this case would not be interesting.

The only interesting thing, as with local telephone service, is to deregulate and maybe one day privatize. But I have some serious doubts about that.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Exactly, Mr. Speaker, and that is why some changes are necessary, but this will not affect domestic mail delivery anywhere in Canada. This will not do so. In fact our Prime Minister and indeed the minister have taken very positive steps toward confirming that rural mail will be delivered to rural addresses right across Canada. Indeed, we want to continue to do that and go back to a place where we were before, to continue to provide great service to Canadians with this Canadian icon.

I am from a rural constituency. I can assure the member that nothing is more important to my rural constituents than Canada Post and the delivery of the mail. We will continue to do that and take positive steps to help Canadians.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Fort McMurray for his intervention and for explaining what this bill really does. I do not believe the Bloc and the NDP actually understand what the proposed legislation does. It actually involves one small clause which states:

The exclusive privilege referred to in subsection 14(1) does not apply to letters intended for delivery to an addressee outside Canada.

This does not in any way affect home delivery within Canada. I think that is pretty clear.

I would like to ask my colleague from Fort McMurray two questions. First, would he agree with me that the remailers are still doing business in Canada as they have done for the last 20 some years? Second, could he explain the context of this legislation and why it is we got to this point? Why is it that only two years ago suddenly Canada Post decided to take this to the courts to assert what had previously not been deemed an exclusive privilege, but today in accordance with that court ruling is deemed to be an exclusive privilege for Canada Post?

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

That was a great question, Mr. Speaker. The member is right. The NDP member who asked the question earlier has not been at the committee as long as I have been there and certainly is unaware of what is taking place with this particular piece of legislation.

Indeed, the member is correct. It will not affect domestic mail at all.

To be clear, I had in my office not six months ago members from an association of remailers who have been in business for anywhere from 15 to 25 years. They have been doing the same business day in and day out. They asked me what they were going to tell their employees when they went home. What were they going to say to them when they could not feed their families?

There are small businesses and employees across the country who get their livelihood from this particular type of business.

The member is correct. Canada Post did not have an issue with this for over 20 years; it was only recently that it did. Indeed, the government's position is that we are going to take the best steps forward to help Canadians, to help small business and to help the Canadian economy. We are doing that. This is one step toward that.

Let me be clear. This is not in any way going to privatize Canada Post. Indeed, it only affects outgoing mail. It does not affect domestic mail.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

Order. It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, Government appointments; the hon. member for West Nova, Equalization payments; the hon. member for York West, Automobile industry.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was beginning to wonder whether we were actually going to get to the bill itself. If members do not mind my repeating what the last questioner asked in the debate, it is about a very small element, section 15 of the Canada Post Corporation Act, to be amended by adding the following after subsection (2):

The exclusive privilege referred to in subsection 14(1) does not apply to letters intended for delivery to an addressee outside Canada.

That is all. That is what the bill is about. We have heard for the last 20 some minutes what the bill does not intend to do, which is fine. I do not think that we in this House should be worried about what it is not intended to do, but rather what it is intended to do. From my perspective, as one of those members referred to by the previous speaker on the committee, this amendment to the Canada Post Corporation Act is really intended to protect the jobs of those small businesses that operate within the parameters of the Canada Post Corporation Act as they were interpreted until two years ago. That is all.

We can either agree that the jobs of people who have been engaged in legitimate business and the businesses that have been engaged in a legitimate environment are worthy of consideration and protection, or they are not. The moment we agree that those men and women have been engaged in activity that has been productive for them and their families and for the Canadian economy, then we must take an objective and positive disposition to this bill. Why do I say that?

In order to get a good comprehension of what we are talking about, we have to think in terms of the dimensions of the discussion. It is good to think in terms of dimensions of discussions in dollars and cents.

Canada Post's annual report for 2006 says that despite a strong economy, the letter mail product was essentially flat in 2006. There was no growth as far as Canada Post is concerned, but it is concerned about the competition from the small businesses and the men and women that they employ.

Let us re-examine that context once again. That same report says that consolidated revenues from operations in Canada Post reached $7.3 billion for an increase of 4.6% over the previous year. This is an environment where the letter mail business is flat, so it has increased by 4.6% its revenues which total $7.3 billion according to its consolidated statement.

Is there another number that fits in with that growth? What does a 4.6% increase mean? Again according to the statements in the annual report, it means $320 million of increased revenue. There is $320 million of additional revenue over the previous year in order to carry out its mandate, in order to guarantee the jobs of the men and women in rural Canada and in urban Canada and to deliver the kinds of service that Canada Post is mandated to deliver.

And when it falls short of its mandate, the Government of Canada, as I read the Canada Post Corporation Act, has always stepped in to ensure that any shortfalls would be guaranteed by the Canadian taxpayer, but that is not the case now. We are not talking about that now. We are talking about an increase of $320 million that has brought to complete revenues of $7.3 billion.

I do not think we ought to focus too much on this. It is a fabulous amount of money. It does not equal anything I have ever dreamed of owning. However, $7.3 billion means that, according to Canada Post, it is now one of the biggest employers in the country. In fact, it is proud to say that it was named as one of the top 100 employers in Canada for 2007 in Maclean's magazine. Things would appear to be going not too badly.

What is the competition for a $7.3 billion company that employs 55,000 people?

We heard the parliamentary secretary say a moment ago that the competition is a group of companies that send letter mail, pick it up and send it abroad, outside of Canada. In other words, they are not interfering with the exclusive privilege of sending mail within the country. In other words, they are not interfering with the mandate of providing that network of communication and jobs around the country. They are not interfering with the mandate to hoist the Canadian flag in communities all around the country so that we can see that our federation works. Those companies and those men and women who have been earning their jobs and their money legitimately, according to the parliamentary secretary who was repeating what Canada Post in its best estimates found to be the case, are a $45 million to $55 million competition.

In committee I pressed some of the remailers. I said that surely it cannot be just $45 million to $55 million. They allowed that maybe they might inch up to $60 million, maybe even $70 million. In any case, according to a very quick calculation on a BlackBerry or any computer we would find that $60 million of gross revenue for these small companies, compared to the $7.3 billion, is about .8 of 1%. That is less than 1%. That is the threat. That is the Trojan Horse that people are now beginning to bring forward. That is why I said that we cannot be talking about what the bill is not going to do; we have to talk about what it is intended to do.

What it is intended to do is to save the jobs of those people who are working for those companies that in their total represent less than $60 million compared to the big giant of $7.3 billion. Seven billion dollars and three hundred million dollars is what Canada Post earns.

If we are trying to save the jobs of those men and women, if we think that their value, their dignity, their right to work is at least as good and legitimate as anybody who works for Canada Post, then we do not have any problem with this bill, because Canada Post does not have any problem with the bill.

In fact, Canada Post, in addition to indicating that it grew its income by $320 million, really did say that the net income for the fiscal period ending December 2006 was $119 million. On revenues of $7.3 billion, it netted roughly $120 million. That $120 million net is at least twice the gross value of all those small companies and their employees who will punch the clock or do what they can to go to work every day to raise their families in an environment that is productive, dignified and meritorious of a Canadian dream.

The bill should be doing that and that is what I thought the government wanted to bring across to everybody. That is why this bill is so brief. It just simply says to let these people work. Where are they working, according to the parliamentary secretary? They are not working all over Canada so they can diminish the mandate of Canada Post to deliver a network of communication for all Canadians and to bring them together and bind this country tighter as one unit. No.

According to the parliamentary secretary and to the best estimates of Canada Post, we are talking about people who are engaged in businesses where this opportunity is practicable. In other words, they cannot compete anywhere else. They can only compete in three areas.

It appears that those three areas might be the greater Toronto area, might be metropolitan Montreal and might be greater Vancouver. Those are not three insignificant markets. They are very large and important but they also have the infrastructure required in order to make some of these very small businesses function.

There is no competition anywhere else. There is no competition for rural mail service in small communities where Canada Post might be a significant if not the most significant employer. There is no competition for a standard bearer for our Canadian presence, the point of contact between citizens and government around the country.

For 20-plus years the business has developed. Obviously it has not been such an overwhelming success as to make great inroads into the revenue stream of Canada Post because the revenue stream totalled $7.3 billion last year in an environment where the letter mail business was flat and these companies were not able to generate much more than $50 million.

I look at this again and ask what we should do as responsible parliamentarians. If we are concerned about the jobs of the men and women who work for these small businesses that operate here in Canada. Members will notice that I did not say they had to necessarily be Canadian owned, but that they receive investment and they do employ Canadians. What happens to the jobs of the people who work for these companies? Will they be absorbed by Canada Post, a company that is trying desperately to be as productive, as efficient and as competitive as any other industrial giant? I do not know. How would it do that?

If this business that Canada Post has just realized exists is labour intensive, and it would be labour intensive in places like Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver and non-existent anywhere else, will Canada Post absorb those jobs and create new ones so that we now can say, as responsible legislators, that we are not taking away the opportunity to earn a livelihood and create a future for oneself and one's family, but that in fact we are transferring the possibility from these small entrepreneurs to a state related organization?

If we could do that, that would be fine but, in a competitive environment, Canada Post will not absorb those jobs. It will ask its union members, which is CUPW, to take on any additional work. Does anyone know why? It is because the work represented by those small companies and their dutiful men and women who work every day to earn money to carry on with their livelihood for their families amounts to less than 0.8 of 1% of Canada Post's gross revenues.

Does anyone think for a moment that Canada Post will absorb all of those jobs and create more new jobs for every one of those people so that it can spend more? It will not do that at all. CUPW members will be asked to take on additional work, but not for more money, presumably, because in an efficiency driven environment it could not do that, but to do it for the same money.

What would be accomplished by driving out of business these companies that provide jobs for people's next door neighbours? It will not hurt people who are not from Toronto, Montreal or British Columbia's lower mainland. It will not hurt the member from Thunder Bay and it probably will not even bother the members from Ottawa. It will have an impact on people from the greater Toronto area, the greater Montreal area and the greater Vancouver area, where people are working diligently to make Canada a success.

What will happen? Will those people now be transferred from a job in one company to a Canada Post position? The answer is no. It will not happen.

As members of the House of Commons, our first obligation is to ensure that no legislation goes through the House that damages the potential available to any Canadian and, concomitant with that, the obligation to nurture an environment that gives Canadians that same opportunity.

If that is what will happen, then this legislation is but a very small step in the direction of a positive initiative that should not be apologized for. That is bad English form. We should not add in a preposition and leave it dangling. We should say that it is something that allows a productive activity to flourish in a legitimate environment. That is what this bill would do.

Mr. Speaker, do not let any member in the House confuse the positive aspects, the intentions of this bill, which came out of a committee that considered, deliberated and debated motions and said that we needed to structure legislation that does something positive, such as save jobs, nurture job creators and ensure that the infrastructure that we already have in place and, with all due respect, that is represented by Canada Post, be maintained. The bill took what the committee said and fashioned it in very simple terms, very brief legislation, and said that this was what we had to do.

I urge everybody to support this legislation.

[Joe Comuzzi, Conservative, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I compliment my colleague across for being so eloquent, as he usually is, on areas that affect all Canadians. He is in his usual good form. He is very succinct and gets right to the point. I could not help but be amazed, Mr. Speaker, that you were paying such rapt attention to the member, which adds to all of us in the chamber respecting your interest in this matter.

When the member talks about the displacement of people from one area, which is the remailers, and obviously some of them have already left Canada, I was not quite sure where he meant they would end up, in what employ, if in the postal business or some place else. I wonder if he would be kind enough, in his normal succinct way, to answer that question.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would love to answer that question. The hon. member gives me a compliment when he suggests that I have the entrepreneurial skills to take the considerations that are on the table for every one of those men and women who currently have a job and who are engaged in an enterprise that is giving them a remuneration with which they may or may not be content, but with which they are satisfied currently, and to replace that with something else.

I am a legislator. I wish I could say I was an entrepreneur, but all I know is that I have asked what will happen to their jobs if the actions that Canada Post was bringing upon them were to have great success. Canada Post could not guarantee that they would be absorbed as additional jobs in the Canada Post corporate plan, and the other companies, if they were forced to shut down, could not guarantee where they would go next. They would be at the mercy of most people who lose their jobs in an open market, out of luck.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to correct my colleague who sits with me on the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities. That is not what the committee recommended. The committee wrote a unanimous report asking Canada Post to defer its litigation until the committee had really studied the situation. That was the motion the committee passed unanimously.

The government has tabled a bill and maybe my colleague is in favour of it. There is a problem though: the committee asked the government for a chance, before the bill is tabled, to analyze the situation, have all the witnesses testify, and find out how many jobs are at stake.

The hon. member was talking about small businesses, but Canada Post talks about big corporations. Personally, I have met remailers who say they employ thousands of people.

I would like to know what the situation actually is in this industry. I also do not want the remailers to cannibalize Canada Post. As we know, Canada Post distributes its wealth in such a way that rural areas have equitable service. If Canada Post’s revenues were ever to decline too much, rural areas could be adversely affected, as they are right now. My Liberal colleague forgets this all too often. By the time Canada Post finishes its safety study, 30% of people will no longer have home delivery.

Could they not have suggested equipping the people who deliver mail in rural areas with small, more suitable trucks, as in the United States, in order to satisfy everyone? No, they decided instead that Canada Post is being deprived of income, before doing a study of the situation.

This is what I blame the Conservative government and my colleague for. Once more, they draw hasty conclusions without doing a real study. The committee’s purpose was to prevent Canada Post from proceeding with litigation that it could shut down. The Bloc Québécois agreed to this. However, we want a real study done before a bill is passed.

What is happing now is that the Conservatives have decided, with the support of the Liberals, that the businesses are right. This means in the end that some rural residents may well lose their delivery service because Canada Post has less income.

I hope my colleague realizes this. That is what I want to ask him. Does he realize that this change to Canada Post could affect rural mail service? He does not seem to realize it when I listen to him, but Canada Post is—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Eglinton—Lawrence.

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member. We work quite well together in committee.

There are two parts to his question. The first concerns my interpretation of what was decided in committee. I do not want to put words in his mouth. I do not want to offend the intentions of my colleague or other colleagues who are members of the committee.

As far as Canada Post is concerned, as I said in my presentation, it is not a matter of eliminating or reducing the service provided under its mandate in rural areas to individuals who want and need Canada Post service where they live.

The reality is that newer neighbourhoods do not get the same type of service—note that I said type of service—but they do get service.

The issue is not about these remailers having an influence over the development of Canada Post service.

[Louise Thibault, Independent, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, for 20 minutes we heard the hon. member talk about what this bill is not. That is rather unusual. I want to talk about the fact that the legislation will remove a privilege from a crown corporation because it has never used the privilege and has just found out about it.

Once it discovers it, uses it and benefits financially, could it not use the revenue to benefit the public, given—as the hon. member just said—that a rural safety study is underway and we already know that some services in rural areas will be abolished? That was known; this is happening.

Why not allow Canada Post to earn more revenue?

[Joe Volpe, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if I may, I would like to answer the question in English so that I can be sure to use the right words to answer it properly.

That would be for the government to respond. Government members have said that they have gone out of their way to give the kinds of guarantees that only government can give.

I was in opposition when the then Conservative government of the day started to close down rural post offices everywhere around the country. In fact, it did not make that distinction. It closed down post offices in urban centres and in mine as well.

There was a transformation of Canada Post. Should Canada Post get greater income? There is no guarantee that income from these remailers will go directly to Canada Post. There is none. The previous questioner asked me what I would do with the jobs of the people who work for these remailers. We cannot give them any guarantees, just like we cannot give Canada Post a guarantee that the $45 million, $50 million or $60 million that is represented by these enterprises will go directly into its coffers.

The essence of international remailers' business is that mail intended for foreign destinations will not go to Canada Post. It will go someplace else. The businesses have every right to pursue a business someplace else. I cannot constrain, and I do not think anyone else here can, the current customers to go to Canada Post. Were that possible, we might be having a different discussion.

Does Canada Post need more money to deliver in rural communities? I do not know. The consolidated revenue statement says that it made $120 million net last year. It did not ask us for permission to spend that money to improve rural service. Why would it? Canada Post also admits that the market for letters is flat. If Canada Post does not have any clients, what is it going to do?

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-14, to amend the Canada Post Corporation Act.

I will summarize it briefly by reading it. It is not a very complicated bill. It is probably one of the shortest bills ever introduced in this House. It has just one clause, a proposed addition to the act that reads as follows:

The exclusive privilege referred to in subsection 14(1) does not apply to letters intended for delivery to an addressee outside Canada.

It is important to grasp the history behind this bill to understand why it is being introduced in the House today. The English and French versions of the Canada Post Corporation Act had a terminology problem. The French version applied this exclusive privilege to letters for delivery to an addressee outside Canada, whereas the English version did not.

Because of this dichotomy, which was in place for over 20 years, remailers infiltrated the mail market. They take mail intended for destinations abroad from companies, put it in a container and send it to addressees via other countries that offer lower rates than Canada Post.

I believe that all those watching the debate on television understand why an exclusive privilege was granted to Canada Post. Among other things, it permits all citizens to receive their mail at their residence, no matter where they live in the great and vast province of Quebec or in the great and vast country of Canada. That is why the House of Commons passed, at the time, the Canada Post Corporation Act: to grant this exclusive privilege so that everyone can receive their mail at home no matter where they live.

Obviously, things have changed since then. As I was explaining earlier, remailers, among others, referred to the English version. Since they were already working in this area, they used it to justify forwarding other types of mail that were not letters. These companies were already in business and they decided to do the same with mail in general and to cite the English version in order to do business.

Three years ago, the Canada Post Corporation finally decided to turn to the courts. These are probably the types of questions that we, the Bloc Québécois would have liked to have asked both the Canada Post representatives and its employees as well as the remailers and their employees, in order to discover why Canada Post went to court three years ago. The courts found in favour of Canada Post and were prepared to issue injunctions against companies that were remailing letters abroad.

The committee, in its great wisdom, wanted to be able to carry out an in-depth analysis before the citizens working for these companies lost their jobs.

I am disappointed with both the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party for tabling a bill before taking a hard look at it. The purpose of the unanimous report presented by the Standing Committee on Transportation, Infrastructure and Communities was simply to ask Canada Post to stop legal proceedings until the committee carried out a thorough analysis of the matter. That was the purpose.

That goal was finally attained, and remailers were not completely satisfied, but they were fairly satisfied. In the short term, it meant that they did not have to lay off employees until we could conduct a thorough analysis.

Then the House was prorogued. People who take an interest in politics followed these events. All the discussions began again in Parliament. Finally, we have a new session, which is what the Conservatives wanted. The government decided to introduce a new bill before the committee could even hold its first meeting. In fact, the organizational meeting took place this morning. When the government prorogues the House, the committees start from scratch again. It takes 14 days after the members are chosen, which is too long. In short, most committees have been sitting for only a few weeks.

The government therefore decided to introduce a bill simply to put an end to Canada Post's exclusive privilege. The government decided to submit the bill to the House of Commons and make the committee work so that we could vote on this. This is clearly unacceptable, because we would have liked to guide the government.

It is very hard to pass amendments when the bill is only three lines long. The government knew exactly what it was doing. The bill that was tabled is only three lines long, and we will not be able to add a paragraph and a half or two paragraphs. That is impossible. This means that, theoretically, we will have to vote for or against this bill without ever having made any real analysis.

In committee, we will make every effort and use every possible means to call a full slate of witnesses, provided that the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party do not work together and decide to limit debate to one day only. Together, they have a majority, and they could decide to do that. In fact, they could just sweep the whole thing under the rug, so that we could never get to the bottom of things, if they decided that the whole matter was settled.

That is why I am a bit disappointed at the speech given by my Liberal friend, who finally seems to have decided that Canada Post is not going to lose any money.

But the Bloc Québécois is concerned. We think that the exclusive privilege is a sign of equality among the citizens of Quebec and Canada, and everyone has the right to have mail delivered to their home. This is why Canada Post was created. I do not like to use this word, but in the old days, it was the Queen's mail. But today, I must say, mail delivery has gone out the window, and the Queen as well, or at least the Queen's mail. Forget home delivery. Those days are over and here is the proof.

The parliamentary secretary, a nice fellow, explained that no one would lose anything. Forget that. It has already started, and 30% of people who receive home delivery will lose this service for safety reasons explained by Canada Post and its president.

There are solutions: in the United States, smaller and better adapted vehicles deliver mail to the door, etc. We could have made such an investment, but no, it was decided that 30% of the population would lose their home delivery for various reasons: size of the route, the way employees work with their traditional vehicle, the fact that they must get out on the side of the road, little space, speed, etc.

In any case, I am not making any of this up. Call any Canada Post official and he or she will say the same thing: 30% of people will no longer have home delivery.

Indeed, they will have to get their mail from the big, green boxes. And, as the Liberal member was saying earlier, all new residential developments have those green boxes. These new subdivisions may all have those green boxes grouped together in one place, but this is not the best solution. If they had really wanted to, home delivery service still could have been provided to Canadians, as it was in the past.

This service is being further and further reduced. We are concerned. The parliamentary secretary can get all worked up and say that Canada Post will never be privatized, but as soon as tempting to privatize Canada Post. There will be fewer employees and staff, that is, just what is needed to be able to privatize the corporation.

This is the Bloc Québécois' concern. Indeed, we do not believe the Conservatives. They said there would not be any impact and that there would always be rural mail. The minister got all worked up saying that nothing would be changed. Yet, within two years' time, 30% of citizens in rural settings will no longer receive their mail. That is the reality hidden behind the posturing of the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities.

Why should we believe him now, when he says that Canada Post will never be privatized? We cannot believe him any more than the public can believe him. Go and talk to those people who stand to lose their mailboxes and will be forced to go to community mailboxes. Ask them if they believe the minister. No one believes him anymore. He works for us every day, ensuring that we are elected, and we have no problem with this. This allows us to be re-elected, time and time again.

However, in certain respects, this is in no way an intelligent objective. It was decided that a crown corporation would be created and given an exclusive privilege, in order to ensure that all citizens in a large country such as Quebec or Canada would receive their mail at home. It was a laudable objective.

They pretend to listen, but then they cut services and brook no discussion about it. That is what the Bloc Québécois disagrees with. I am not saying that things would turn out any differently otherwise. The problem is that they decided to introduce a bill that cannot be amended. We will have no choice but to vote for or against the bill. It is only three lines long, so it will be practically impossible to amend. We will have to vote against the bill or for it. The government cannot say that it did not realize this. It has law clerks and knows exactly what it is doing.

All it wanted to do was present us with a fait accompli and ask us if we were for it or against it. That is exactly what committee members did not want to happen. I am having a hard time understanding my committee colleagues who were there at the time. We all wanted Canada Post to drop its case so that no jobs would be lost. We were against losing jobs, but we wanted a thorough analysis. That was our goal.

Now we have a bill that says,“You have no choice. You can talk about it all you want, but in the end, the point is, are you for it or against it?” If the analysis had been done before, we could have come up with a better, smarter solution that would probably have enabled Canada Post to protect its exclusive privilege while letting remailers keep their jobs. It could have happened. Some of our Liberal colleagues were even ready to do that. We had discussions. But none of that will happen now because the government decided to do things its way. I am disappointed that the Liberals agreed to that. I hope that we can have a debate about this in committee.

Canada Post has very healthy sales, but revenues are down significantly. It is important to understand that the Canada Post Corporation pays taxes in the provinces where it does business. It is a crown corporation, but it has to pay taxes, which is good. It is a corporate taxpayer like any other business. You have seen and will understand that a portion of these revenues goes to taxes. Then, because it is a crown corporation, Canada Post must pay a dividend to the federal government. In 2007, that dividend totalled $48 million. That means that it must turn over its surplus to the Government of Canada. It was decided that things would work that way, and I am not opposed to that.

But if the decision is made to decrease sales and if ever the goal was for Canada Post to earn $49 million or $50 million less net profit, what would be the reaction of the government, which would still want its dividend at year-end? Is this discussed in this bill? It is impossible. This bill can no longer be amended. All the legislative drafters will say that you cannot add anything that changes the substance of the bill. We will therefore not be able to discuss that.

This is the sticking point for the Bloc Québécois. The government cannot threaten something that has been in existence for generations and is likely the oldest service provided by the federal government across Canada. The mail is likely the oldest service. The government is attacking it directly, gently, simply by letting companies do what they want, without letting us ask questions, hold a real public debate or invite all the stakeholders. The government has done this by being both judge and defendant and saying that it is not important to Canada Post. It has revenues of $7 billion or $8 billion, but in the end only $49 million is paid in dividends to the federal government.

Imagine the spending. That is $119 million in net revenues and $49 million in dividends paid to the government. If sales are cut by $150 or $200 million, net revenues and dividends will drop, and we will be forced to cut other services to maintain the dividends for the government, which needs this money to do other things, as it does with employment insurance. It is dipping into the EI fund. The EI fund is not an independent fund. Citizens who make their contributions to EI make them into a fund here, in Ottawa, that is not independent. It is part of the consolidated fund, and the government needs that money to pay down the debt and invest in military equipment or the war.

That is a choice the Conservatives make. They certainly do not invest in the environment. That much we know. But they will happily invest in the oil industries or in military equipment. It is a choice. The problem is that they have decided to do the same thing with the dividends paid by Canada Post, and want more money to invest in military equipment and in oil resources, but not in services for the public.

There is not one Conservative member who can guarantee me that today, because there will be no debate on the subject. The debate will be held on three lines of a bill that will ask whether we are for or against allowing remailers to send letters outside Canada. We cannot make even the slightest modification. There will be no debate, and there is nothing we can do about it.

It is yes or no.

Since the Liberals and the Conservatives have already shown their colours, it will be yes to the bill right from the start. That is what is disappointing. The real debate will never be held, not in committee or in the House of Commons because we do not hear witnesses here.

The Conservatives way of handling this matter here in the House of Commons with this bill is very disappointing. In the previous session, before the Conservative government prorogued the House, that was not what the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities decided. There was a unanimous resolution in committee, which I will repeat so that everyone is clear, to the effect that Canada Post must not go any further and must end its dispute with the remailers so that no one would lose their job, until a full review of the situation had been done. This review was not done and will not be done.

The bill is so limited that all we can say is whether we are for or against having remailers distribute letters outside Canada. I maintain that this risks upsetting the balance of the postal service across Canada.

On that point, the Bloc Québécois will do everything in its power to shed light on this. We cannot allow the government, the Conservatives and the Liberals, to do this without putting up a fight to make people understand that this bill threatens public services. That is what we are going to do. You can count on the Bloc Québécois. Quebeckers who elected a Bloc majority in Quebec will be glad they have the Bloc Québécois to defend their points of view.

There is nothing rosy about this. Always saying yes to private companies, the way the Conservatives do, is very worrisome. We think it is also important to protect the service in all the regions of Canada. Quebec covers a lot of territory and the people in the rural areas are just as entitled as people in urban centres, to home delivery service. In the big cities, you get home delivery service and no one is jealous of that. You probably deserve it. You pay your taxes. Nonetheless, people in rural communities are also entitled to their service and mail delivery at home because they too pay their taxes. They are the equals of city dwellers.

As you can see, the Bloc Québécois will never tire of debating this injustice being perpetrated even as we speak. I repeat, Mr. Speaker, if you ask all those in charge of safety at Canada Post, they will tell you that, in rural areas, mail service will be reduced by 30% once the safety analyses have been completed. They are not proposing to change delivery vehicles to ones that are smaller and can drive on the shoulder of the road, as in the United States. No, not at all. They are not talking about that; it is too expensive. I understand that, because with this bill they will lose potential revenue or even lose money.

We must understand why Canada Post decided to take remailers to court. Is it because the problem is growing and their share of the market will double, triple or quadruple in 10 or 12 years? Will Canada Post be cannibalized by these companies? No one in government is asking this question. The matter has already been settled. The bill has already been tabled and it has been decreed that we have to deal with the remailers. We will never know.

Naturally, this is very worrisome for the rural postal service. The Bloc Québécois will always support the equity of all regions, whether urban or rural. We will never rise in this House to jeopardize the service provided to citizens, whether they live in rural areas—as I was saying earlier—or in urban areas. Quebeckers and Canadians work hard and are entitled to residential postal service, whether they live in rural or urban areas. The Bloc Québécois will always be there to defend them.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his intervention. I very much appreciated working with him on the transport committee.

He knows full well that the issue of the remailers was actually discussed at committee on a number of occasions. In fact, we even had witnesses before our committee who testified about the impact that this particular industry would have on Canada Post.

We had a lot of discussion over this issue, and the hon. member also knows that this bill, when it is passed at second reading, will end up going back to committee where he will be able to make all the arguments and say whether his party is for or against this particular bill.

I think the hon. member over-complicates the matter. I will read the actual legislation itself. It basically refers to section 15 of the Canada Post Corporation Act being amended by adding the following:

The exclusive privilege referred to in subsection 14(1) does not apply to letters intended for delivery to an addressee outside Canada.

In other words, it is a very simple question and a very straightforward issue: Should remailers continue to be allowed to do business in Canada?

I do take issue with the hon. member's characterization of $50 million per year being taken away from Canada Post. In fact, he knows that is not true. The truth is that the $50 million has never been received by Canada Post because remailers have been doing business for some 20 years in Canada and continue to this very day to do business.

My question to the hon. member is, how can he claim that Canada Post is losing and will lose $50 million, or whatever the amount is, every year, when in fact it has never received that money?

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I find that surprising because Canada Post wrote to us saying that it had tried to resolve its issues with these companies amicably. Why did Canada Post decide to take the matter to court? Because the market was growing.

I do not want to hear the member say that Canada Post's bottom line will not be affected. The reason Canada Post took these businesses to court is that the market was growing and it was time to clarify the situation. I do not mind if our colleague trumpets his bill, but it is only three lines long, which means that it cannot be improved. Either one is for it or one is against it. That is what I do not like about it.

The member is on the committee. He knew full well what we wanted to do, which was to conduct a thorough study before suggesting legislative amendments. He said that we heard a lot of witnesses, but I would point out that not even Canada Post employees were able to appear before the committee. As he may recall, we were unable to call employees before the committee at the same time as the president because they were negotiating collective agreements in other areas.

The study was not a thorough one, even though the committee recommended it unanimously. Canada Post was asked to drop its case until a thorough study could be completed. That is not what the Conservatives decided to do. They introduced a bill that, I agree with the member, is not long. One either supports this bill or one does not. That way, the Conservatives can avoid the whole debate, and we will never know the whole story. Once again, that is the Conservatives' modus operandi in government.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I agree, for the most part, with the comments made by my colleague from Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel. As he will recall, I was very much involved in the discussions in committee. Furthermore, there were a great many motions and procedures. In the end, it all led to a rather lively exchange of ideas, from which resulted a resolution that was unanimously passed by the committee.

Indeed, as indicated by my hon. colleague from Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, this unanimous resolution recognized Canada Post's exclusive privilege and asked it to stop its litigation in order to consider other possibilities through which Canada Post could continue to exercise its exclusive privilege while somehow compromising with remailers.

Since I have major concerns about the bill as it was introduced, I would like to inform the House that I was one of the people who believed that Canada Post's exclusive privilege should not be tampered with. To attack it, infringe on it, chip away at it and lessen it, as this bill seeks to do, would truly be a first step towards something that, in my opinion, we do not want to do. Indeed, we are sinking into something that greatly concerns me, in part, because of some of the reasons indicated by my colleague.

I do not have a question for the member, but since I participated in the discussions in committee, I would also like to set the record straight: we were able to reach this unanimous consent only because the two concepts were taboo. We respect the exclusive privilege, but we are calling on Canada Post to stop its legal actions and learn to compromise with the remailers. This is not at all what the government is doing at this time. On the contrary, it decided to cut off the discussion, in a way that I personally hope to be able to comment on during the debate and that poses considerable problems for me.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I truly appreciate the question posed by my colleague for Ottawa—Vanier. I know that he was given a promotion and that is why he no longer sits with us.

Nevertheless, that was the thrust of the discussions. Once again, I am disappointed that the government has introduced this bill that does not give us a choice. It cannot be improved. That is what I find frustrating. Had we been able to improve it, we might have been able to come to an agreement. The way in which it is drafted only allows us to be either for or against it. With only three lines, it is impossible to add a paragraph. The law clerks would find it not receivable. We will have to be either for or against the bill.

I am pleased that the Liberals are divided. That will make us work harder.

[Louise Thibault, Independent, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be brief in order to give others an opportunity to speak.

I thank my colleague for Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel for his speech. I would merely like him to say if he agrees with my statement that it is nothing more or less than deregulation. It is based on an ideology that favours the free market, quite often at the expense of the people to be served. To repeat the expression he himself used, service for those who live in rural areas will go out the window.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

The honourable member for Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel would probably like to know, when answering, that another member of his own political party would like to ask him a question and there are two and a half minutes remaining.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is quite right. That will be the result. However, that was not the committee's goal.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague from Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel on presenting this way of seeing this bill.

This is nothing new. The report issued by the committee that reviewed Canada Post's mandate in 1996 recommended “that Canada Post remain a Crown corporation in the public sector and the exclusive privilege be maintained”. The report also recommended “that Canada Post be mandated to operate on a break-even basis rather than pursue a commercial rate of return”.

With this bill, the government is attacking just that by wording the bill in such simple terms that we cannot change anything. I am very aware of that.

I would like my colleague to tell us more about the losses that will result in our ridings, especially a riding like mine, where there are hills—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

The hon. member for Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Brome—Missisquoi is absolutely right. He himself is an example. I know that he is dealing with that right now.

Citizens in his riding are undergoing a reassessment right now, and given the topography around there, Canada Post will probably cut service to more than 30% of their mailboxes. That is very frustrating because there are techniques and technologies for that. The member himself showed me how it works in the United States. Much smaller cars are much safer on the roads. But we cannot talk about that. We cannot talk about investment because the Canada Post Corporation might lose revenue to other companies.