Motion No. 4

Bill C-9 be amended by deleting Clause 2137.

Motion No. 5

Bill C-9 be amended by deleting Clause 2138.

Motion No. 6

Bill C-9 be amended by deleting Clause 2139.

Motion No. 7

Bill C-9 be amended by deleting Clause 2140.

Motion No. 8

Bill C-9 be amended by deleting Clause 2141.

Motion No. 9

Bill C-9 be amended by deleting Clause 2142.

Motion No. 10

Bill C-9 be amended by deleting Clause 2143.

Motion No. 11

Bill C-9 be amended by deleting Clause 2144.

Motion No. 12

Bill C-9 be amended by deleting Clause 2145.

Motion No. 13

Bill C-9 be amended by deleting Clause 2146.

Motion No. 14

Bill C-9 be amended by deleting Clause 2147.

Motion No. 15

Bill C-9 be amended by deleting Clause 2148.

Jobs and Economic Growth ActGovernment Orders

1:50 p.m.

NDP

Chris Charlton NDP Hamilton Mountain, ON

Madam Speaker, although amendments are an important part of the legislative process, my amendments today would be superfluous if the government had not dumped a number of non-budget items into Bill C-9. However, it did, so I am moving an amendment to delete all sections from C-9 that deal with Canada Post.

As I said, these clauses should never have been in the bill in the first place, and the government knows that. In fact, it made two previous attempts to pass changes to Canada Post in stand-alone legislation. Neither of those attempts, however, succeeded. Instead of respecting the will of Parliament, the Conservatives buried these changes deep within the almost 900-page budget bill, hoping that no one would notice. Well, New Democrats noticed.

In fact, I was the first person to raise the issue in this House. But more important, the 45,000 member of CUPW and Canadian families noticed, and they have been fighting the issue ever since.

Denis Lemelin, the president of CUPW, appeared before the Standing Committee on Finance and clearly explained the impact the proposed changes would have on postal rates and postal service in this country.

I think it is worth repeating some of the more salient points here, because clearly, the government did not listen the first time.

Mr. Lemelin said:

CUPW would like to urge this committee to give this very small part of Bill C-9 a very large amount of attention as it amounts to partial deregulation of our public post office. In Canada, letter mail is regulated for a reason. Canada Post has an exclusive privilege to handle letters so that it is able to generate enough money to provide affordable postal service to everyone, no matter where they live in our huge country. This privilege includes both domestic and international letters. We believe it will become increasingly difficult for Canada Post to provide universal postal service if the government erodes the very mechanism that funds this service—the exclusive privilege.

Canada Post’s exclusive privilege to handle letters has received remarkably little attention over the years. But international mailers, who are currently carrying international letters in violation of the law, have recently taken issue with this privilege and waged a campaign to undermine our post office’s right to handle international letters. Canada Post estimates that international mailers siphon off $60 million to $80 million per year in business. Its concerns with remailers have grown as the international mail business has grown and as remailers have unfairly competed for international mail by exploiting the two-tier terminal dues system adopted by the Universal Postal Union in 1999.

It is our understanding that Canada Post attempted to address its concerns with international mailers through negotiations and finally through legal action against two of the largest companies, Spring and Key Mail. One ruling by the Court of Appeal for Ontario stressed the importance of the exclusive privilege in serving rural and remote communities and noted that international mailers such as Spring Canada are not required to bear the high cost of providing services to the more remote regions of Canada. The corporation won this legal challenge all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada.

After this victory, a coalition of private Canadian and international mail companies, called the Canadian International Mail Association (CIMA), hired a lobbyist in an attempt to convince parliamentarians to remove international letters from Canada Post’s exclusive privilege to handle letters. The government initially defended the importance of the exclusive privilege but it was not long before it started to reconsider its position, presumably because of the CIMA lobby. Nevertheless, the government did promise, in a letter to CUPW, that no changes to Canada Post's exclusive privilege would be considered without thorough policy analysis. We would like to point out that, to date, there has been no serious review or thorough policy analysis of the international mail issue or the impact of removing international letters from Canada Post’s exclusive privilege.

The government’s recent strategic review of Canada Post did not look at these issues. Unfortunately, this did not stop the review’s advisory panel from recommending against deregulation of letter mail, with the exception of international letters. It simply doesn’t make sense to be proposing legislation before you look at the relevant issues. The proposed legislation doesn’t make much sense either. Canada Post’s letter mail volumes declined for the first time in 2008 and again in 2009. The corporation clearly needs international letters as a source of revenue to maintain and improve public postal service. Furthermore, most people in this country are opposed to deregulation of Canada Post. They do not support eroding or eliminating Canada Post's exclusive privilege.

Close to 70% of people oppose postal deregulation according to a 2008 Ipsos Reid poll.

Even the government's strategic review of Canada Post found that there is virtually no support for deregulation. The report from this review states:

There appears to be little public support for the privatization or deregulation of Canada Post, and considerable if not unanimous support for the maintenance of a quality, affordable universal service for all Canadians and communities.

Of course, there is one group that supports partial deregulation of Canada Post, and that group appears to have the ear of the government. International mailers want international letters removed from the corporation's exclusive privilege. They have argued that the English version of the Canada Post Corporation Act currently allows them to handle these letters.

In other words, remailers have argued that the French version of the Canada Post Corporation Act should carry no weight and that the English version should prevail. This argument has been rejected by the courts.

Remailers have also argued that Canada Post's legal action against remailers will effectively kill thousands of Canadian jobs and that they should be allowed to continue to do business to save these jobs. An examination of the evidence indicates that there may be a few hundred jobs at risk, not thousands.

While we take the responsibility of job loss very seriously, we do not think exclusive privilege should be sacrificed to save the jobs of businesses operating in violation of the law, and there may be alternative ways of dealing with the issue of jobs.

Those were the critical points made in the presentation by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers on part 15 of the budget implementation bill.

Our public postal service provides universal and affordable services to all Canadians. It is our role as Canadians and as legislators to preserve this capacity and to prevent the erosion of a service provided to all Canadians, no matter where they live, where they work, or where they do business.

It is precisely because this is an issue of national importance that the Canadian Labour Congress, representing 3.2 million workers in Canada, also intervened on this matter.

Hassan Yussuff, secretary-treasurer of the CLC, appeared before the Standing Committee on Finance and reminded members that as an employer, the postal service offers many job opportunities, many of which are in rural areas and are occupied by women. Canada Post is often one of the few potential employers for women in rural communities. He also said:

To say the least, it is strange for a government to change a law that will have a negative impact on Canadians just because those who are breaking it don't like it and are eager to siphon off even more profits. Don't we count on our governments to enforce our laws?

It is even stranger that the government is attempting to push the legislation through without a thorough review. What's the rush when there is so much at stake?

We do not believe that Canadians want to see the destruction of their postal service. They want a sustainable public post office and reliable, affordable mail delivery. There is no reason to jeopardize a good service that provides good value to Canadians, just because of a desire to satisfy the powerful lobbyists.

We are urging the government to immediately withdraw or sever part 15 of Bill C-9 and reaffirm its support for the exclusive privilege and public ownership of Canada Post.

It is time for members of the House to take a firm stand on this issue. In particular, I hope that the Liberals will find the courage of their convictions. On the one hand, they make eloquent speeches about supporting CUPW in its campaign, but thus far, whenever push has come to shove, they have shown up in insufficient numbers to defeat the government's proposal. It is not too late. I encourage all members to do the right thing and vote in favour of deleting part 15 from Bill C-9.