Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, any corporation operating in the 21st century that serves millions of customers has to be sensitive to the customer needs, and sensitive to what Canadians need—

Government Operations committee  —and the corporation continues to do that. It has a long history. It has a 253-year history of doing that respectfully. It's doing that constantly. Even today, customers are calling us for customer service issues. We do it with the utmost respect, and our call centres are employe

Government Operations committee  Canada Post is responsible for all of its affairs. We do not have third parties prepare our plans.

Government Operations committee  Canada Post looks at international best practices, Canada Post looks at expert opinions, Canada Post looks at other postal administrations, looks at other ideas that are coming through, and that's how we have evolved over the years.

Government Operations committee  Corporate plans are prepared looking at a wide range of factors: interest rates, expenses, inflation, cost—

Government Operations committee  —so I don't think we can look at just one factor in isolation in planning an $8-billion corporation's financial plan.

Government Operations committee  We look at the global best practices. There are reports that are published for the—

Government Operations committee  I explained earlier on in my remarks—

Government Operations committee  Our goal is to participate in the independent review panel process as a corporation that has a lot of knowledge about our business, providing all the facts, all the pros, all the cons, and participate in that process not only on that option but on all the other options that will

Government Operations committee  Our plan in October of 2015 was suspended. Now our energies are more focused on making sure—

Government Operations committee  As far as Canada Post services to Canadians, as we have been evolving in the postal service, Canada Post has been providing the same services to Canadians all across the country. I think it is important to understand—

Government Operations committee  Given the announcement our minister made last Thursday for the independent panel to look at all options, we are participating in that process and at this stage we are keeping all options open. The right way is to look through the lens of affordability, financial sustainability, o

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, the corporation looked at banking almost five years ago and at that time we decided it was more appropriate for us to focus our energies on the core strengths of the corporation that we already had and to build on those. At that time, we felt we should be focused on gr

Government Operations committee  The single largest issue we're facing is the decline of letter mail. In its early days, between 1969 and 1975, letter mail grew by a billion mail pieces. Between 2006 and 2015, letter mail declined by 1.6 billion pieces. So our biggest challenge is to overcome the financial gaps

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, we are indeed at a crossroads, and we are not alone. Yesterday, the United States Postal Service released its quarterly results and announced a net loss of $2 billion. The U.S. Postal Service, whose revenue grew marginally, still reported a $2-billion U.S. net loss. Th