Government Operations committee  I would say Canada Post is a service and should be a service. If it makes money, that's wonderful, but if Canadians are going to get equitable service, then they need to have equitable pricing. Canada Post needs to be seen as a service rather than as a revenue generator. A quick

Government Operations committee  As an urban resident, it's very difficult to say. I live in New Westminster, and we don't have a Canada Post outlet. We have only a franchise. They're convenient, but it's not a Canada Post person. It's somebody in a Shoppers Drug Mart uniform. It is the face of the government, b

Government Operations committee  It undermines the brand a bit. I don't see us necessarily going back to having—

Government Operations committee  I do get good service when I go there, and I assume most Canadians get good service.

Government Operations committee  Yes. I've had experience working in two small communities that had postal service, but no banks. One is Cobalt, Ontario, and the other is the Inuit community of Ulukhaktok in the Northwest Territories. If there were banking available through the post office in these two places, t

Government Operations committee  With respect to money transfers, immigrants make up the largest group of people sending money transfers. They often make decisions based on price. It's very difficult to understand what the price is when you figure in the exchange rate. Making that clear, making that available, a

Government Operations committee  Apparently we had a postal bank into the 1960s.

Government Operations committee  No, I don't, as long as it continues to be universal and there continues to be Canada Post trucks with the Canada Post logo on them. I read in the report some suggestion about wrapping them with advertising, which I thought was a horrendous way to dilute the brand. I don't see a

Government Operations committee  Yes. As I alluded to in my statement, I would like to see Canada Post move back into postal banking, perhaps slowly at first. There are maybe a million Canadians who are unbanked or under-banked and are victimized by cheque cashing services with outrageous fees. There are small,

Government Operations committee  My personal opinion is that it should be public and not private. Canada Post needs to break even; it doesn't need to make a profit. It's a public service, and it should be treated like a public service rather than as a corporation.

Government Operations committee  Thank you for the invitation to be here today. My name is Pamela Stern, and I'm a professor of anthropology at Simon Fraser University. My research concerns the way that Canadians feel and act as citizens as we interact with each other and with all levels of government. Please