Government Operations committee  I think there's a difference between “last mile” and “first mile”. I think most of the postal outlets in rural areas are operating as first mile outlets. Delivery can easily be done in places such as Trinity without a post office being present, or they can have a franchise post office.

Government Operations committee  Yes, we were.

Government Operations committee  Yes, we would support that as well. We see it as a regulator's role to approve extraordinary rate increases, not necessarily those normal inflation-based increases that we're seeing in many cases, but the rate increases when they do something exceptional, like they did in 2014, I believe.

Government Operations committee  Our mailers look upon the ombudsman as more of a consumer-facing capability. Canada Post has significant market dominance and wields a lot of power in the industry, to the point that in some cases it fines our members when they do something wrong, and there is no point of appeal.

Government Operations committee  We'll try. NAMMU's perspective on this is that Canada Post has not had a strong record of introducing new products, and the farther it's gone afield, the more unsuccessful it has become. New products that build on their current capabilities work. Things that go into new areas, such as postal banking, don't work and we don't believe will work.

Government Operations committee  Yes. We talked to members about alternate-day delivery. Having control of when your product is going to be delivered to the door, whether it's advertising mail or an invoice or a magazine, along with the notion of having a fair bit of certainty of when that will be and being able to plan so that it arrives on a Thursday, a Friday, or a Monday, is a very important aspect.

Government Operations committee  I'd also like to add that we think alternate-day delivery adds complexity to the system. We will see on-time performance suffer as a result of that.

Government Operations committee  Thank you. First of all, we'd like to thank the task force for a wonderful report. We think it helped to establish a strong fact base from which informed decisions can be made about the future of Canada Post. First, NAMMU supports the continued rollout of community mailboxes. We find it an effective way to deliver mail, and we found no evidence that it in any way diminishes the channel or makes it less competitive.