Government Operations committee  Okay. You eco-audit. You share. You do it collaboratively. You then set up. If you're unionized, you do it through collective bargaining. You can do it with non-union companies. You plan the stages by which you'll reduce the greenhouse gases, now that you know where they are. At that point in time, you set yourself real—

Government Operations committee  Yes, hard targets. Thank you. After that, if you're in the private sector, you divide up the profits you've made.

Government Operations committee  I can speak to it, I think. First of all, 13,000 vehicles makes Canada Post the largest, or one of the largest, fleet owners in the country. Second, about four years ago, The New York Times published an op-ed page piece by the then president of the U.S. Postal Regulatory Commission calling upon the postal service to shift over to green vehicles.

Government Operations committee  That raises the question of the hub, but also, I got a bit into the fact that the infrastructure of Canada Post that it now has is a very large competitive advantage, and it's a treasure in a number of ways. One is as a community hub, but also, there are a large number of ways that Canada Post still serves to network the country still.

Government Operations committee  It's not on the Conference Board, but it's on the statistics and the numbers. In the task force report, it projects a $63-million loss for Canada Post in this year. In the second-quarter report by Canada Post, it announced $45 million in profits before tax already in this year. I think we need to look with caution at these numbers.

Government Operations committee  Yes, but how much time do we have?

Government Operations committee  I want first to answer almost the last thing you said: we're not Sweden. One of the things I've been finding as we've been looking at how to reduce greenhouse gases and work in Canada is that you can borrow tactics, not strategies, from other countries. You can borrow pieces. They will work.

Government Operations committee  Okay. The answer is yes. One of the first things you would start with is the government directing Canada Post to develop a green plan, which is developed collaboratively with its employees and their unions. A green plan has three and possibly four parts of development and a real timeline.

Government Operations committee  I would be happy to.

Government Operations committee  Thanks very much and hello to everybody. I should mention that I'm a professor of work and labour studies and I direct a seven-year research project called “Adapting Canadian Work and Workplaces to Respond to Climate Change”. It's part of a suite of research projects that began to get funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council in 2008 and continue into the 2020s.