Mr. Speaker, I first would point out that Canada Post is run by a CEO and a board of directors who make strategic decisions on a day-to-day basis as to how it will operate and what its business decisions are on a go-forward basis. That is why it has a five-point plan.
Members do not have to take my word for it. If they read the last Auditor General report on Canada Post, it is clear that the CEO and the board of directors make the strategic decisions for the company. At that time, they were commenting on the postal transformation initiative. Let us be clear. That is the way Canada Post was designed to run in the first place.
In 1981, it was a government department, running chronic deficits and costing taxpayers enormous amounts of money. It became a crown corporation in 1981 and was given a mandate to deliver the mail in a financially self-sustaining way. It has been trying to do that through efficiencies and improvements. It has invested in optical reading and other importing sorting equipment, which has generated some savings. However, the savings are not sufficient to offset the structural trends that are happening.
People are just not mailing as they used to. That is a significant collapse in revenues, and it is forecast to get worse. Therefore, Canada Post had to come up with a five-point plan, and we support its right to make that plan.