Privatization won’t save Canada Post
Re Time to stop Canada Post’s slow-motion
death march, Opinion Dec. 23 R. Michael Warren’s attempt to justify the eventual privatization of Canada Post misses the mark on several fronts. While diagnosing the “problem” accurately, he totally ignores the attitudinal issues that allowed modernization to threaten the survival of a vital Canadian institution. Warren then expects Canadians to embrace privatization as a “solution” to incompletely diagnosed problems. It is to weep.
First, let’s acknowledge that Canada Post, like most government-owned businesses, was built and paid for with tax dollars to meet the expectation that all of us, regardless of where we live, should pay the same amount to send things through the mail.
Second, whenever such enterprises are peddled to the private sector, the normal result is that taxpayers (the original investors) and workers (the people who built the place) get screwed, while some private entity goes on to make a lot of money. Given this, it surely behooves Canada Post and the federal government to think creatively before embracing discredited models of privatization. That involves recognizing other realities. Letters, bills and payments were the lifeblood of Canada Post through the years. It is not surprising that they aren’t any more. We can communicate electronically by email, text, etc. and we can complete most of our financial transactions online.
Also, online activity has contributed to a burgeoning parcel delivery market. Warren notes all this but, instead of seeing it as a one key element of a strategy to save Canada Post, he instead proposes privatizing it, a strategy that would allow the private sector to capitalize on Canada Post’s profitable parcel delivery business while simultaneously ignoring the decreasing volume of letter mail.
While the private sector would be happy to take the parcel profits, it is not about to embrace the obligation to deliver a letter from St. John’s to Tuktoyaktuk for the same price as it would charge to deliver one from Toronto to Montreal.
Although various people have been urging privatization of Canada Post for years, it hasn’t happened. Why? Because neither the federal government nor Canada Post management has been willing to incur the wrath of the private sector that would surely result if the corporation strayed from its core — but disappearing — mandate.
So Canada Post is the victim of a cruel double standard: nobody complains when the private sector sets up services in direct competition with Canada Post, but the thought that Canada Post might return the favour sends the private sector and its apologists into apoplexy.
I agree that “Trudeau should end Canada Post’s death spiral with real changes that should have been implemented years ago.” But the changes needed are not further gutting and privatization. Rather, Canada Post should be empowered to expand its parcel service, to expand into other areas of service that are logical outgrowths of its core mission, to take whatever steps are necessary to remain a vital piece of the Canadian tapestry, and to retain locations and employees. Neil Thomlinson, associate professor, Department of Politics, Ryerson University Why does every so-called expert who advocates for a solution to a troubled government service always suggest privatization? What does privatization do? When government allows business to take over a public service, it is essentially saying that service is no longer essential for citizens and thus business can have free rein to gouge consumers. Salmon Lee, Mississauga There are important facts Mr. Warren has ignored. In 1983, the Public Service Alliance of Canada filed a discrimination complaint because their employer, Canada Post, had failed to comply with pay equity legislation. Thirty years later, in 2013, they finally complied.
Governments must take heed when they allow corporations to renege on workers’ pensions and allow corporations to ignore the gender wage gap because when that corporation is found guilty of non-compliance, the penalty plus interest can cost big dollars.
Also, Canada Post announced a $299million operating profit in 2014 and in the first six months of 2015 continued to operate in the black.
At the very least, the Action Plan ignored its duty to serve citizens, and Canada Post was badly mismanaged. Perhaps the Trudeau government’s plan to review the whole mess to find out the root cause for its “death march” may find the way to retain our universal mail delivery that I and others look forward to, without constantly raising the price of stamps and laying off workers. Thelma McGillivray, Burlington Perhaps there is a connection between Canada Post losing money in rural areas, and big-profit banks closing in small towns such as MacTier, Ont., (“Muskoka town mourns loss of only bank,” Dec. 18).
The Star had a story some time ago about the post office having once supplied banking facilities in small towns in Canada. The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives espouses the idea of postal banking. If our post office still wants that business (and they do need something more, to prove their continued existence), here’s a chance for them to start a project to supply banks in small rural towns such as MacTier.
They could start by adding banking to the post office building there, or, better still, move the post office to the existing (soon to be unused) bank building and run both from there. It already has teller counters and a vault. Maybe they could have a Purolator outlet there as well?
Other countries, such as Britain, have, and still enjoy, postal banking. John Purvis, Colborne Former Canada Post CEO R. Michael Warren advocates for the sale of Purolator, a profitable corporation, to pay off debt. Is this really always the solution to everything? Sell off what’s working the best for a momentary cash injection? Nick Moreau, Brampton