Government Operations committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank you for inviting the Conference Board to appear before you today. I represent the institution as its vice-president for public policy. The Conference Board is the largest independent research organization in Canada by number of employees an

Government Operations committee  Our first observation is that the challenge is enormous. Changes are being made to the business model, which, as I mentioned earlier, promotes efficiency gains while maintaining service. Then it remains to be seen what service Canadians expect and how to adjust the business mode

Government Operations committee  The 2013 year was the second year in which Canada Post incurred an operating loss. In the basic scenario that we had prepared at the time, including changes planned as part of the so-called postal transformation initiative implemented by Canada Post, the corporation posted a prof

Government Operations committee  We did not make any comparisons of its cost structure with those of other postal services.

Government Operations committee  In fact—

Government Operations committee  The challenge in that type of exercise is always to establish an order of magnitude since there are a lot of potential solutions. Here we have six scenarios, and none of them managed to fill the financial gap. We realize we have to take a broader view. There is a range of initiat

Government Operations committee  The short answer is that there were some changes implemented by Canada Post, so that what we anticipated for 2020 wouldn't be the outcome. There was a postal transformation process with incremental changes—the community mailbox, for example. Some of the scenarios, in fact, that w

Government Operations committee  Exactly. The price increase, labour, service, community mailbox—all those things were measured as part of the scenario.

Government Operations committee  Yes, and I think the big elephant in the room is the pension issue, something that we had put aside assuming that it could be solved somehow, but it's going to have to be dealt with.

Government Operations committee  The full transfer—

Government Operations committee  No. Actually, in the six scenarios we put forward around the wage, that was unrealistic. It was just to indicate the magnitude of the challenge. With regard to alternate-day delivery, I know Ernst & Young came out with saying that there would a small potential gain from that.

Government Operations committee  There's a dynamic aspect into this that needs to be considered. The changes that have been put in place have, in fact, delivered some results. At the end of the day, whether it's postal banking or other solutions, I think the overarching conclusion of the report was that there is

Government Operations committee  They're not just stand-alone or cumulative over time. They're complex, so that's the overarching conclusion. There is another thing, and I'd like to make that point really clear, because that's the bread and butter of the Conference Board, and I am an economist myself by training

Government Operations committee  Overall, I would say yes. In fact, I would have liked to see an effort to quantify some of the pricing strategy, for example, and a review of labour and pension costs. A series of other things have been mentioned, but I think that's something that could be beefed up, so to speak.

Government Operations committee  Yes, in fact, the volume of activity, the price, the cost structure that was—