OGGO Committee Report

Dissenting Report by the New Democratic Party of Canada

Canada Post Review: A Service-Oriented Approach

Background

On May 5, 2016, the government launched a review of Canada Post. This review was undertaken in response to Canadians’ dissatisfaction with the Five-point Action Plan announced in 2013 by the Canada Post Corporation.

The Liberal government missed a great opportunity to fulfill its campaign promises by reinstating home mail delivery. It seems obvious that people voted for MPs and a Prime Minister who had said very clearly they would reinstate door-to-door mail delivery.

It is important to note that the NDP made a commitment to reinstate home mail delivery. It is a simple matter of fairness. Eliminating this service affects seniors and people with disabilities the most. For them, door-to-door mail delivery is an essential service.

The NDP firmly believes in the public nature of Canada Post’s services. We want Canada Post to continue offering quality services at reasonable prices. In addition, with its existing network of post offices, Canada Post should explore offering new services.

A number of options were presented, but very few were examined in depth. The government rejected postal banking services outright even before the Committee had seen the secret studies carried out by Canada Post. The NDP remains convinced that postal banking would be a valuable service for Canadians. 

Process

The discussion paper entitled Canada Post in the Digital Age, published by the government’s Task Force, was submitted to the OGGO Committee in late September. The discussion paper referenced a number of studies and analyses by consultants, as well as opinion surveys, without identifying their sources. The Committee was not given access to some of these sources. Therefore, there was no way of verifying the accuracy of the results and conclusions presented by the Task Force.

In addition, the approach taken was to reduce operating costs rather than to increase revenues. Focusing on using franchise locations and converting from home mail delivery to community mailboxes would eliminate many good jobs in favour of precarious work at much lower salaries. Potential new services were mentioned in the Task Force’s discussion paper, but were not closely examined.

It is very unfortunate that the Committee did not receive access to the various secret studies carried out by Canada Post regarding postal banking until very late in the review process. In addition, these documents were submitted in English only.

Our Findings

During the consultations, the unions representing Canada Post employees made it clear that Canada Post is a Crown corporation, and that the government has no intention of privatizing it. Therefore, the Canada Post pension fund should be treated as a public pension and should not be subject to the solvency funding requirements applied to private-sector pensions. We are pleased to note that the report recommends this change to the Canada Post employees’ pension plan.

The report proposes to restore door-to-door mail delivery, which is welcome. However, we are disappointed to note that this return to home mail delivery will be limited to communities where the conversion to community boxes took place after August 3, 2015.

We are also pleased to note that the government seems open to the idea of establishing a tripartite advisory council to improve communication between the itself, the unions representing Canada Post employees and the Canada Post Corporation.

What is Missing

We are quite disappointed that neither the Liberal Party nor the Conservative Party were open to pursuing postal banking services. This option was summarily rejected by both parties at the beginning of the consultation period. They were not willing to change their minds, even when a survey showed that a significant number of Canadians would be interested. According to a survey carried out by the Task Force, 7% of respondents said that they would certainly use postal banking services. Another 22% of respondents said that would probably use postal banking. We believe that the 29% of Canadians who are interested in this service represent a fairly significant market share.

Postal banking is especially appealing since the six largest banks in Canada made nearly $35 billion in profits in 2015, which leaves plenty of room for competition. Brenda McAuley, the National President of the Canadian Postmasters and Assistants Association, mentioned during the consultations that a study of 3,260 rural communities showed that 1,200 did not have a bank or credit union. Of 615 Aboriginal communities, only 54 (or only 9% of the total) had a bank or a credit union. Therefore, we are disappointed that postal banking was not studied further.

Conclusion

The report’s recommendations lack direction. The report gives the Minister of Public Services and Procurement too much discretionary power in interpreting these recommendations. It is nearly impossible to predict with any certainty how these changes will be applied.

We sincerely hope that the Minister of Public Services and Procurement will be vigilant in herapproach. We would also like to emphasize once again that the NDP firmly believes in the public nature of Canada Post’s services. It is important for Canada Post to continue offering quality services at reasonable prices. With regard to being financially viable over the long term, postal banking should have been considered more seriously.