Presentation to Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities by Deborah Bourque President, Canadian Union of Postal Workers (March 26, 2007)

On behalf of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, I want to thank you for the opportunity to appear before this Committee.

CUPW represents 54,000 workers in rural and urban communities from coast to coast to coast. A majority of our members work for Canada Post.

I would like to begin by saying that I am very pleased that you have asked me to talk about both international remail and rural mail delivery because they are connected, although not complementary concerns.

As you know, the federal government has directed Canada Post to maintain and restore rural delivery, while respecting all applicable laws, such as the health and safety provisions of the Canada Labour Code. While we have some concerns about implementation, we applaud the basic thrust of this directive, as well as Lui Temelkovski's motion directing Canada Post to maintain rural delivery and protect public safety, which was passed unanimously by Parliament in October.

The directive on rural mail delivery is a good decision, but one that could be completely undermined by the government's latest decision to review and possibly legislate an end to the problems facing international mailers.

First, I would like to provide you with my understanding of these problems.

 

International Remailers

International mailers or remailers claim that Canada Post is attempting to expand its exclusive privilege and undermine small business people who handle international mail, even though many remailers are actually very big businesses and some are working with large postal administrations.

Remailers in Canada collect and ship mail to other countries, usually developing countries, where the mail is processed and remailed at a lower cost as a result of a two-tier international mail system that is designed, in part, to address the differences between developed and developing countries. So remailers collect and ship this mail, but Canada Post has the exclusive privilege to collect, transmit and deliver letters in Canada. This is the basic problem facing remailers.  After a number years of trying to find a solution to this problem, Canada Post took legal action against remailers and won. Some remailers were given six months to get out of the business. That's when the International Mail Association, a coalition of private Canadian and international mail companies, started lobbying members of Parliament. This lobby coincided nicely with the last election period, which the Association used to demand a parliamentary review of the exclusive privilege provisions of the Canada Post Corporation Act.

It took them about a year, but it looks like the Association has convinced the government to review the exclusive privilege. In December, Minister Lawrence Cannon told Parliament that he would review the problems faced by international mailers and examine legislative options.

We believe that the government may undermine Canada Post's ability to provide universal postal service, particularly in rural and remote parts of our country, if its decides to satisfy the concerns of international remailers by removing international letters from Canada Post's exclusive privilege to deliver letters.

As you know, Canada Post was provided with an "exclusive privilege" to collect, transmit and deliver letters, including international letters, in order to finance the corporation's universal service obligation (USO).

When members of Parliament voted unanimously in 1981 to adopt the Canada Post Corporation Act and include an "exclusive privilege" that would fund the USO, they were aware universal service at a uniform rate represented a financial subsidy from urban cities to rural and isolated communities. At that time, it was estimated the cost of servicing rural and isolated areas was “six to ten times” the existing postage rate for a standard letter.

Providing universal service in a large country with a low basic postage rate -among the lowest in the G8 - is difficult at the best of times. The union is extremely concerned that a reduction in the exclusive privilege would threaten revenues, and ultimately public postal service and jobs.

Until recently, the government appeared to agree with this assessment. A letter from Minister Cannon's office dated July 25, 2006 said that (quote), “The activities of international remailers cost Canada Post millions of dollars each year and erodes the Corporation's ability to maintain a healthy national postal service and provide universal service to all Canadians." (unquote)

When we discovered that the government appeared to be changing its views, we immediately wrote to say that we hoped that their newly announced review would include an impact study of the options being considered and a public release of this study, as well as a full public debate on any proposals and a parliamentary vote.

I would like to be clear. We are opposed to the government's review and possible changes to the exclusive privilege provisions of the Canada Post Corporation Act. This Act, which was the result of extensive consultation between parliamentarians, business groups and postal unions, has not unhinged. There is no groundswell of opposition to the Act. There is simply a small but very powerful campaign being conducted by competitors of Canada Post.

Our position is that Canada Post's exclusive privilege has worked well, to date, and that it should not be undermined. The exclusive privilege allows the post office to provide everyone, no matter where they live, with an effective and affordable communication and delivery system. This is no small feat in a huge country with a population spread far and wide.

Unfortunately, the government has already decided to conduct a review and consider legislative changes. Therefore, it is also our position that it would be foolhardy to conduct a review that considers the exclusive privilege without a full and public examination of this issue, including its impact on the universal service obligation.  

 

Rural mail delivery and safety

At this point, I will turn my remarks to rural mail delivery and safety. As you may know, some of our rural and suburban members deliver mail in some pretty unsafe circumstances. A number have exercised their right to refuse unsafe work under the provisions of the Canada Labour Code. When workers exercise this right, government health and safety officers investigate and render a decision as to whether the work can be done safely or not. When RSMCs cannot safely deliver mail, Canada Post moves delivery to alternate locations - post offices, green boxes and community mailboxes. Some of these community boxes expose the public to the same kind of danger our members have been facing.

Unfortunately, the corporation has not always consulted with box owners or local union representatives to develop solutions that would preserve service and ensure safety. However, Canada Post and CUPW are meeting regularly at the national level with a view to solving both safety and delivery problems.

The union is attempting to reach an agreement with Canada Post to conduct a national review of 843,000 rural mailboxes. We want Canada Post, as part of this review, to agree that it needs to work with local residents and CUPW representatives who have first-hand knowledge of the delivery and safety problems within a community. We believe that this is the only way Canada Post can actually restore and maintain delivery. We know that problems will continue to crop up if they don't adopt this approach.

CUPW is committed to doing what it takes to conduct a national review, but we believe that this work needs to begin immediately.

We had been hoping that the government's directive would help us come to an agreement with Canada Post on outstanding issues so that we can get on with the job of restoring and maintaining rural mail delivery while keeping those who deliver the mail safe.

But we now have serious concerns about the government's commitment to rural mail delivery. As I said earlier, we believe that the government may undermine Canada Post's ability to provide universal postal service, especially rural service, if it decides to satisfy the concerns of international remailers by undermining the very mechanism that allows it to provide this service - the exclusive privilege.

We would like to urge the federal government to follows up on its excellent decision to restore rural mail delivery with a complementary decision to maintain the exclusive privilege which funds this delivery. Thank you for listening.