Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by saying that I will share my time with the member for Random—Burin—St. George's.
I think it is worth pointing out once again that postal services are essential services. I think that is something that everyone in the House agrees on, regardless of our party affiliations.
Why am I rising here to say it is an essential service? First of all, the government is the one that made this declaration when it put an end to the Canada Post strike in June 2011. The government felt the need to legislate an end to the strike because, as members on the other side of the House claimed at the time, it is an essential service. Everyone needed to get back to work as quickly as possible.
We can see that it is an essential service because, over the years, Canada Post has proposed some changes to its policies. We often see an outcry from the business community, especially small and medium-sized businesses, about how policy changes have an impact on their bottom line. This is an essential service.
The new strategy was announced rather quietly, once the House of Commons had adjourned for the winter break. If postal services are essential, I hope that this strategy is not the first step toward the eventual privatization of Canada Post. As I said, this is an essential service.
Because this is an essential service, it is structured like a crown corporation and not like a private company that is not accountable to the Government of Canada.
It is a crown corporation because when we are talking about an essential service, some accountability is needed. If it were not a crown corporation, we could not debate its future here in the House. It is very important to have that accountability.
As a crown corporation—or quasi-governmental organization, if you would prefer—the Canada Post Corporation is required to consult before making a major policy change. It apparently conducted consultations before it decided to stop home mail delivery. Unfortunately, I have noticed in the past that these consultations seem to essentially be bogus. I will share two examples.
In my constituency, they decided to close a very small post office. It is actually one of the smallest I have seen in my life. Obviously, they asked for people's opinions. The post office was in my constituency, in the village of Pointe-Claire. A consultation was held and people were asked to send their comments by mail or by email. I myself took the opportunity to write to Canada Post to ask for the post office to remain open. People everywhere were opposed to the closure. Even the municipal council in Pointe-Claire asked the Canada Post Corporation to join with it in holding some kind of open public meeting to discuss the matter.
Despite all that, the post office was closed. Frankly, I think that the decision had already been made, because everything that needed to be done to close the post office had already been started. This is the first example of why these consultations seem to be bogus. The same thing happened in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue. The post office was closed, even though people were against the idea.
Members on the other side of the House are constantly on their feet in this debate to explain to us that the world has changed. We know that the world has changed: everyone here has a BlackBerry, and the Internet is critically important in modern communications. We do not need to be told that over and over again. The world has changed; email is a common form of communication and we have to adapt to that. Canada Post has to adapt, for sure. In this day and age, the organizations that successfully adapt are those that demonstrate creativity. We hear it everywhere. Administration and management experts tell us that a modern organization must be able to come up with creative strategies, to adapt and to change its culture from the inside, and so on. We have to believe it.
I get the impression that the Canada Post Corporation has not reacted very creatively in this matter. Rather than suddenly stopping home mail delivery, the corporation needed to have been more open to the ideas going around that could have helped it to adapt better, some of which have been mentioned in this debate. That culture of openness is nowhere to be found inside Canada Post and I will come back to that a little later.
Many MPs have received complaints about Canada Post over the years, so they know that in many cases, the elderly and people with disabilities have trouble getting to community mailboxes. I would like to share a case I dealt with a few years back. I will not mention any names because I want to protect these people's privacy. There was a couple in my riding, and both members had multiple sclerosis. The community mailbox was on a little island across from their house. They had serious problems getting their mail. First of all, the mailbox was too high. Second, the box itself was too deep, so they could not reach all the way to the back to get all of their mail. Canada Post was contacted, and a comedy of errors ensued. In the end, the lock was changed, and this person could not longer get mail at all. The community mailbox was across from their house, and even then it was a nightmare for this couple with disabilities. It caused problems.
I would like to share some comments people made during a meeting of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities held before the holidays about how Canada has a fairly high number of people with disabilities. According to the 2012 Canadian Survey on Disability, “about 3.8 million people, or 13.7% of Canadians aged 15 and older, reported being limited in their daily activities because of a disability.” The prevalence of disability increases steadily with age.
Our population is experiencing rising levels of reduced mobility, and we need to take that into account. Canada Post has not done so. There should be broader consultations to get ideas from Canadians about how to solve problems related to our new technological reality.