Mr. Speaker, first I would like to inform you that I will be sharing my time with my learned colleague from Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, even though 10 minutes is not enough time to defend Canada Post and I have a lot to say.
I will start with a story that dates back to February of last year, when the Conservative government came up with the brilliant idea to stop sending out income tax forms by mail, telling everyone they were readily available online. However, one of my constituents, a blind man, had trouble finding the form on the Internet and, despite his disability, went to the postal outlet closest to his home. That postal outlet no longer reports directly to Canada Post because many post offices were closed, while postal outlets opened in pharmacies, convenience stores and businesses of all kinds. Then, after several minutes of arduous walking in the middle of February, that man was told that the postal outlet no longer received income tax forms.
I then served as his letter carrier for a while and went to get the income tax form from a post office that was still open in Trois-Rivières, finally delivering it to him. I did not have the heart to tell him that not only would he not be receiving his form in the mail next year but that soon he would not be receiving anything by mail.
It seems to me that approving and supporting a decision such as this really shows a total lack of understanding of what a public service is. I am astounded by the Conservative speeches I have been hearing for the last while. I get the impression they are using their speeches to prepare the public for a full privatization of Canada Post. What they have been doing for years now, in a barely concealed way, is to represent Canada Post more like a private company, whose primary aim is to maximize profit rather than deliver services to the public. I repeat, however, that Canada Post is a public service.
I would not go so far as to say that Canada Post could operate at a loss because it is a public service, but the corporation has nevertheless made a profit in 17 of the past 18 years, even sending revenues to the government of Canada. Suddenly the government would have you believe that it is a disaster waiting to happen by 2020. However, that disaster in the making is based in large part on a report by the Conference Board of Canada, which selected 2012 as its reference year and called it a deficit year in its report. However, Canada Post finished 2012 with a budget surplus. Furthermore, three months of operations at Canada Post were overlooked in the figures used in that study because it was completed before the end of the corporation's fiscal year. Consequently, the most profitable months for Canada Post, which occurred around Christmas time, were not reflected in the budget. That is quite extraordinary—not to mention that the CEO of Canada Post sits on the board of the Conference Board of Canada. Which way do they want it? I think they wanted it both ways. This study served as a basis for all the Conservatives' arguments and all the decisions that were curiously announced the day after the House rose in December. I would not go so far as to say that the report is not worth the paper it is printed on, but it is questionable to say the least.
That raises serious questions about the Conference Board of Canada's independence from the government and about the reliability of its diagnostic analyses. Clearly, it also raises serious doubts about the acceptability of the conclusions. For a while now, in almost all the speeches made by my Conservative colleagues, I have heard the same old story of how Canadians have turned a digital corner and no longer write letters to put in the mail. I am starting to develop a serious allergy to that story.
One thing the callowest administrator to come out of a Marketing 101 course knows or should know is that letter mail is decreasing. The graph of the decrease in letter mail is probably Canada Post's most predictable feature. So any top-notch administrator, not the kind who is paid $10 million per year, should be able to predict the loss of revenue that comes with that decrease. However, there is a limit; it will not drop to zero. We are not far from seeing the decrease in letter mail bottom out.
On the other side of the ledger, we hear very little about the rather exponential increase in parcel post resulting from our transformation to the digital economy. People are sending more and more emails, and they are doing more and more online shopping. That means parcels need to be shipped.
Of course, when we are getting a parcel shipped to us, we can choose the company that will deliver it to our door or to the nearest pick-up point. Do we know of any private parcel-delivery companies operating in Canada that have distribution network, in both rural and urban areas, that is as large and extensive as Canada Post's? Once again, it seems to me that it does not take a graduate degree in marketing to understand that this is an area to be developed and that Canada Post's network is not a liability but an asset, a driving force for the change needed in Canada Post's services.
However, what did that same Conference Board of Canada report from the 1970s propose? The only proposal is about managing the drop in letter mail. Is that an acceptable vision for such well-paid managers, to tell us and try to convince us that the only issue Canada Post has to deal with is managing the drop in letter mail? That is unbelievable and inconceivable.
On the contrary, we can see from the decisions that have been made—such as eliminating an excessive number of post offices—that we are only a few post offices away from hitting the minimum number required by the agreement. I imagine that some other way will then be found to close more.
What does all that mean? I believe the Conservatives are quietly setting the stage to present Canada Post as a private business, one that generates enough profit to interest a private investor, once they have done away with anything that might be weighing it down.
However, a public service is about give and take. What is cumbersome on one hand should be compensated for by rapidly expanding sectors. In the Conference Board of Canada report, there is not a single word about emerging sectors for the future or innovation. The only thing it talks about is managing the drop in letter mail. That is terrible.
During the private meetings I attended, I could sense how stubborn the Canada Post officials were. If you listen to them and look at their outcomes, it seems as though there is no solution. That is completely untrue. We must be wary of privatization. Canada Post is more than just a public service; it is vital for Canadians.