Government Operations committee  Perfect, thank you so much. Good morning, co-chairs, ladies and gentlemen, and honourable members of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates. Thank you for the opportunity to speak as a witness on the topic of Canada Post, an issue of significant concern fo

Government Operations committee  Particularly online retailers?

Government Operations committee  I don't have specific statistics on competition for online retailers. I know that one of our members, John Barrett of Vesey's Seeds, will be speaking a little more about his experience. Similar to what Katharine has said, we have heard a little from our membership about some del

Government Operations committee  My general observations from the membership—and again it would just be anecdotal because we certainly haven't conducted the consultation that the task force has—is that the implementation of the community mailboxes had very little impact on the business community. It was very muc

Government Operations committee  I think that in the short term, until a solution is identified for how we get to a more sustainable Canada Post model, it is a service that the business community needs. That was apparent in the report. We heard that loud and clear. Whether it's an online retailer, a catalogue re

Government Operations committee  Absolutely. Yes, we do invoicing for our membership dues as well as other non-dues fees. A number of our members do require that. In fact, we find that larger corporations actually want no more letter mail invoices.

Government Operations committee  Earlier this summer we potentially faced this situation. We distribute a quarterly magazine. It's treated as letter mail. We were preparing an emergency response as to how we were going to push that out. We were actually looking at a delivery model that was very human resource-he

Government Operations committee  Yes. It was going to be a combination of courier services, staff, and other volunteers to distribute that.

Government Operations committee  Although we represent what would be identified as an urban area, we have a lot of members in rural areas. Canada is a very rural nation. I think to respond to that question we would need to understand what the implications are for delivering to rural areas, and if it would exclud

Government Operations committee  I can step in here. The observation from our committee, and in speaking to members, is that increased costs for using Canada Post is something they would want to be evaluated very carefully. As was noted, we're dealing with small businesses, and their profit/loss margins are very

Government Operations committee  We haven't had any significant negative feedback about the community mailboxes from the business community's perspective, primarily because a lot of the urban deliveries would be.... They wouldn't have seen a lot changed; they probably go to their post office. I haven't had a lot

Government Operations committee  No.

Government Operations committee  I think the reaction from the business community, when you're having challenges with cash flow, as any SME has probably faced in its various life cycles, is to do just what Canada Post's task force is doing in this process, and that is to look at opportunities to increase revenue

Government Operations committee  Right.

Government Operations committee  Yes.