QUESTION PERIOD — Public Services and Procurement
Canada Post
December 12, 2024
Senator Gold, in small and rural communities, the post office is a lifeline. It’s how millions of non-smartphone users communicate.
The current postal strike is crippling small businesses, still reeling from COVID, that have promised free holiday shipping to spur business. This strike punishes these operations as well as those who still send and receive mail and also those who live outside urban areas where there are no other options.
If you, as the federal government, are committed to service to rural areas, what is your next move other than, of course, your sign-off on a 25% stamp price hike?
The problems that are facing Canadians — especially those who are not easily or possibly served by alternatives to Canada Post — during this strike are very serious.
The federal government has been working hard with its mediation services and working hard with the parties to bring them closer to the circumstances where mediation could even be possible.
The challenges — and these are well known, certainly, to parliamentarians who have been in this place for the last 10 years or longer — are that there are structural problems that cannot be ignored, given changing technology and changing habits in shopping, shipping, communications and the like. It is the hope of this government that the parties will come to their senses — and that includes Canada Post and the unions — and sit down at the bargaining table and bring an end to this strike in the best interests of Canadians.
The post office is showing $750 million in losses. There has been no profit since 2017. The union members are well paid — up to $50 an hour.
With the business-killing strike and the costly and crippling GST bill, this is also creating the death knell for another source of postal revenue because many of the transactions that required cheques in the mail will now also end.
What will you do to resolve this?
Senator, thank you for pointing this out again. I couldn’t agree more with most of what you said, at least with regard to the problems that Canadians are facing — if not all the causes — but there are some problems that don’t allow for a quick fix, and this appears to be one of them.
The best solution will be for Canada Post and the unions to stare reality in the face and come to an agreement that will preserve the ability of Canada Post to continue to serve Canadians, as Canadians need to be served.
