Government Operations committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to thank the members of the committee for inviting us today. I have with me our chief financial officer, Mr. Wayne Cheeseman, and Madam Susan Margles, our vice-president of government relations and policy. I have a few remarks, and then we'll ope

Government Operations committee  Canada Post has always been both. It has components of its business that compete vigorously in the marketplace, such as our parcels business or our marketing mail business, and it has the traditional exclusive privilege of delivering mail, which unfortunately is less and less in

Government Operations committee  Much of that discussion we shared with the task force. Their report has very thoughtfully articulated the summarization of the complexity of the business challenges we face and some of the options they have laid out in the discussion paper. The challenges, as I mentioned in my o

Government Operations committee  We have been at it for quite some time.

Government Operations committee  Over the last five years Canada Post has embarked on lots of changes. The spirit of those changes is twofold. Almost half of our focus is on growing revenues. For example, our parcel business has grown over the last five years by over $400 million. As I mentioned, with 1.6 bill

Government Operations committee  I think at this stage our view is that with all of these options, for us to be able to look at one option or two options in isolation is not the right way to approach it. I think a package that balances the financial self-sustainability goal.... Once the committee has had a chanc

Government Operations committee  —has to do a two-pronged approach: grow its business, as we are growing in our parcels and logistics; and address the structural misalignment of the costs that were built for a different generation. It's a combination.

Government Operations committee  We believe that Canada Post—

Government Operations committee  With regard to the reviews of Canada Post, its mandate has been reviewed almost every five, ten years. We see this as a process that from time to time governments undertake to make sure that the mandate for the corporation is aligned with the changing needs of Canadians. So for u

Government Operations committee  Our five-point plan was designed to save between $700 million and $900 million. At the time of its suspension, we were halfway into this plan. We had saved almost $400 million, and the rest of the savings are now on hold pending this conversation.

Government Operations committee  I think the mail has changed its shape and size over many decades, from postcards to letters, from parcels to packets, and so on. What we are finding now is that it's going through the same change again, with parcels growing. The challenge is not that parcels are growing. In fact

Government Operations committee  One of our guiding principles on the transformation we embarked on was that we would work with the workforce within the framework of our collective agreement and also within the framework of the retirements and the attrition coming up in our profile. Our average age for employees

Government Operations committee  —and that is the change that is essential as part of the transformation.

Government Operations committee  Much of the data in the report is based both on our financial projections and on task force outside advisers Ernst & Young validating them. A lot of the assumptions and the financial data, we believe, are materially and directionally in line with our projections.

Government Operations committee  We shared all of the work with the task force that Canada Post has in all of its areas of research, and the task force has done its own assessments, its own independent work, to come to the conclusions noted in their report.