Mr. Speaker, earlier this week two areas of Winnipeg affected by a new technology being used by Canada Post to pre-sort mail suffered temporary work stoppages that delayed local delivery.
The local sorting and distribution centres in South Winnipeg and the Transcona portion of my own Elmwood—Transcona riding had work disruptions as a result.
It is well known that Winnipeg letter carriers face adverse weather conditions like rain, ice and snow.
The problem in a nutshell is that the new sorting machines can only handle approximately 80% of the materials having to be sorted, while the delivery workers are expected to manually sort the remaining 20%. Management demands delivery staff carry two separate bags of arranged mail at the same time and juggle both.
I hope that some common sense can be used to take advantage of the experience of people who actually do the work. It should at least be expected from a high-profile public crown corporation like Canada Post.