Government Operations committee  Before I get to that, to hit your point on potential revenues at Canada Post, I would say that with 29% of the population saying they would definitely or probably switch their banking to a postal bank, and with the big six banks making $35 billion in profit last year, I'd say there's a lot of revenue there.

Government Operations committee  As I mentioned before, Canada Post is rather top-heavy. I don't understand why they need 22 vice-presidents or a CEO that makes twice the wage of the Prime Minister. I think there's a lot of fat to be trimmed at the top, to be honest.

Government Operations committee  I think one is opening up to innovation in a real way. Postal banking is probably our best road to go on that. If you look around the world, there are whole other areas that post offices have been involved in. In France, for example, La Poste is now a cellphone carrier. You can go and get a wireless plan and buy your cellphone at the post office, as well as do your banking there.

Government Operations committee  Canada Post absolutely needs to be looking at service expansion of some sort, and we believe postal banking is probably the best way to do that. I wouldn't agree that Canada Post's core competencies are only in delivery. We have thousands of members who never deliver anything. They focus on retail and already do passport checks and money transfers and other financial operations, so I think we do have competencies in those areas as well.

Government Operations committee  We believe Canada Post is very well situated to adapt to declining mail volume. As I said earlier, we can see that in the fact that they have been able to adjust their staffing levels in direct accordance with the decline in letter mail already. We don't need to actually cut services and stick these boxes onto people's front lawns to achieve that.

Government Operations committee  That would be our position, absolutely.

Government Operations committee  I think we already have negotiated more competitive labour costs. Let's be clear: Canada Post is perfectly capable of competing right now in the parcel market, and that's evidenced by the fact that they deliver two out of three parcels in this country right now. Canada Post has no problems competing.

Government Operations committee  To start with, I don't think there is a discrepancy. We're relying on management's numbers when we talk about labour costs. In the table we presented in our critique, those are Canada Post's numbers. They are not ours. We didn't come up with them. I believe the 41% and 45% numbers that have been thrown around came from Ernst & Young.

Government Operations committee  As we've informed both this committee and Canada Post, we're willing to discuss any of the options put forward that don't entail cuts to our members' benefits and retirees' benefits. That said, I think the task force has put forward a number of options that would accomplish that, and we would like to discuss them for sure.

Government Operations committee  I would suggest the common ground we should be looking for is actually how to expand services and how to serve the public. We've consistently been putting this forward with the employer. We haven't found a lot of willingness to be receptive around that. Certainly, I know it's been mentioned that the unions at Canada Post have felt quite disrespected by not being consulted on these things, by being given only minutes' notice of announcements of major changes.

Government Operations committee  Sometimes I think, why don't you just let us run the post office? We'd do a better job of it. In all seriousness, I don't think Canada Post needs nearly the governance and management structure it has. It's very top heavy—you're right. Most of the burden has been placed onto the workforce in order to make cuts.

Government Operations committee  With the 2011 contract, we would certainly say that was imposed on us. We did come to a negotiated agreement in the end, but it was very much under the threat of the unconstitutional legislation imposed by the last government. That said, we recognize Canada Post is in a situation where it's changing.

Government Operations committee  I thought a number of things mentioned by Mr. Chopra yesterday were surprising. I'm going from memory. I remember his saying that they lost $300 million in revenue in 2009 and talking about what a bad situation Canada Post was in in 2009. He neglected to mention that in 2009, they actually reported their largest profit in corporate history.

Government Operations committee  I think Canada Post is mandated by legislation. The aim of it is to provide a public service and to be self-sufficient in doing so. We don't see a reason to change that. The one point that our union has historically differed from is that we don't believe that the profits of Canada Post should be going back to the government, but actually should be reinvested in Canada Post.

Government Operations committee  Certainly over the last decades Canada Post has made billions of dollars in profit that have been returned to the public purse in the form of taxes, dividends, and other things. We think it would make a lot more sense to reinvest that into the service. That could be something like expanding services into postal banking, but it could also easily be expanding the services that it provides to Canadians.