Transport committee  Terrific. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. It's a pleasure to be here this afternoon. I did want to share with you a few views of small and medium-size businesses. A deck was passed around to each of you, and I'll stick to that, if I could. I believe there are 10 minutes to spe

Transport committee  Sure. On the first comment, about the other business associations that are supporting the need for more federal dollars for infrastructure, I will say that what's happening in Manitoba is a disturbing example. The big business groups in Manitoba did support an increase in the PS

Transport committee  One of the issues you raise is something we would share as a common cause. At the federal level there have been a lot of master agreements created that really have cut out a lot of small and medium-sized firms from bidding on federal government contracts. That's not in the infras

Transport committee  Temporary staff agencies, for example; we hear from that an awful lot too. I think the thinking is that this is saving taxpayers' dollars. I'm not sure that's actually the case, so we share the view that the federal government needs to revisit some of those master agreements fo

Transport committee  Oh, municipalities definitely don't agree.

Transport committee  I will say it's not always about what cities are spending their money on, although we do have some questions on that from time to time. It's how they spend the money. There is the fact that municipalities have massively underfunded pensions. The federal government has taken some

Transport committee  Thank you for that question. We've shared similar concerns over this issue for some time. Municipal revenues have been growing vastly more than is needed. I would argue that municipalities have been one of the most effective lobbying groups in Canada over the last decade. That

Transport committee  This is a larger point. That is, we feel that senior levels of governments are getting played. They are backfilling for decisions that municipalities make to pay excessive wages to government staff. Therefore, they have that option. They won't reform their own houses so long as t

Transport committee  Thanks very much. I'm very happy to be here today. We've been hearing a lot about Canada Post from small and medium-sized businesses that are members. At CFIB we have 109,000 small and medium-sized companies spread across Canada in every province and in two of the three territo

Transport committee  I'm terribly sorry about that. We did send it earlier today, but I know this committee meeting was rushed. I'll summarize the high points with you directly.

Transport committee  Forty per cent of our members send 50 or more pieces of letter mail per month, and these are small companies. In fact, very few of our members—only 1% or 2%—send no letter mail per month. The impact of the rate changes on small and medium-sized firms will be rather significant.

Transport committee  Well, we don't like the price increase and are suggesting that it be rejected, or sent back to the drawing board. At the very least we would like it to be phased in. I mean these are huge increases on small and medium-sized firms, many of which are not doing particularly well at

Transport committee  We have had regular meetings with Canada Post over decades. We did do some survey work. We have met with them. I can't tell you the exact last meeting...but on the specifics of the five-point plan, no. We've talked about some of these themes before. We've certainly talked to them

Transport committee  On the specifics of the five-point plan, no, but as I said, we've had ongoing meetings with them on a variety of subjects.

Transport committee  My reaction is that it is disappointing. We would have certainly lobbied against those moves. The thing that we're reacting to with the greatest sensitivity is the massive, massive price hike. On that front, we were absolutely not consulted.