Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member with some interest here. If they want to look at what international examples there are, since the member raised a few, they will see that in the EU they are fully competitive and have no postal monopoly. Many are privatized. Many slashed their workforces by up to 40%, and they have expanded franchise counters significantly. Canada Post has not even proposed doing most of those things.
However, I do have a question on postal banking, which she raised as a possible solution. In the example of New Zealand, the post office created the bank there and then had to capitalize the bank out of postal revenues to the tune of about $360 million. Sure, while Kiwibank may be profitable, in the end New Zealand just announced it is slashing service delivery, closing post offices and, as a result, laying off about 1,000 postal workers. Is that the example the member is thinking of?
Can the member tell us, since the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives could not, who will capitalize a postal bank? How much capitalization will come out of postal revenues? Does she think Canada Post can afford to create a bank?