Canada Post Corporation Strategic Review - 2008-08-23

Dear members of the Advisory Panel,

The New Brunswick Federation of Labour welcomes the opportunity to make a submission to The Canada Post Corporation Strategic Review.

The New Brunswick Federation of Labour is New Brunswick’s largest central labour body representing 21 different unions, 255 local unions and 7 district labour councils. Virtually all industrial and public sector unions with members in the province have locals affiliated to the Federation. Our membership includes unions active in the forestry, mining, transportation, energy, communications, manufacturing and processing, service and public sectors. This wide diversity in membership obligates the NBFL to address issues and concerns impacting workers.

The NBFL has many concerns with this current review and our first area of concern is the consultation process. We are extremely concern that it is being done in such a hastily manner, without true public consultation. The Canada Post Corporation Strategic Review Panel should be traveling across the country to meet with Canadians in order to hear their point of view. Furthermore, the deadline for submitting brief should be extended to 2009, the current deadline of September 2, 2008 simply does not give enough time for the public to analyze the Consultation Guidance Document and do research in order to prepare a brief.

The NBFL fully support universal public postal service. We must take pride that our postal service is one of the best in the world. After all, our postal service provides to all Canadian, no matter where the live, an effective and affordable communication and delivery system. It is imperative that it stays that way. It is also very important to note that Canada Post is accountable to the public and to the Parliament. Canada Post also plays an important role in small rural communities across the country. That accountability and that presence in our communities must remain.

Canada Post must preserve the exclusive privilege to collect, transmit and deliver letters within Canada. This regulation exist for an important reason, it enables Canada Post to generate enough money to provide affordable service to everyone, no matter where they live. By removing this exclusive privilege, in other words to deregulate Canada Post, would mean the end of our universal postal service.

The NBFL opposes whole heartily the deregulation of Canada Post. Experiences of deregulation in other countries have led to higher postal rates and less service to both the public and small business. Deregulation in other countries has also led to jobs cuts. With 86.9 % of rural counter workers and 71.5 % of rural route mail delivery staff being female, rural areas and women would be the hardest hit.

The province of New Brunswick is made of many small rural communities. Many of our members live in these small rural communities and our postal service is the tool we use to send them information. On average, we send about 450 letters every two months, plus 250 every January and June of every year. We use Canada Post for many reasons, it’s public, it’s affordable, it’s secure and it’s efficient. We fear that deregulation would increase our costs and increase the costs for our members.

We were extremely surprised to read in the Consultation Guidance Document that Canada Post has paid more than 400 million dollars in dividends to the Government of Canada since 1998. This is totally unacceptable to the NBFL. Canada Post is not a business and it should not pay dividend. This money should instead be invested in the public postal services, like post offices, rural delivery, door-to-door delivery and to improve working conditions of postal workers.

The NBFL believes that we have a social responsibility to maintained a valued, secure and universally accessible public postal services for everyone. We therefore urge The Canada Post Corporation Strategic Review to reject any form of deregulation.

Yours sincerely,

Michel Boudreau, President
NBFL