Parliamentary committee hears more about Canada Post situation
The heads of two unions representing striking Canada Post workers said solving the Crown corporation’s financial problems can’t be solved with a one-size-fits-all approach.
Dwayne Jones, national president of the Canadian Postmasters and Assistants Association (CPAA), and Jan Simpson, president of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW), addressed the parliamentary committee on government operations on Oct. 28.
CPAA represents more than 8,500 Canada Post employees, all working in rural, remote and northern communities.
“Our members operate more than half of the post offices in the country and often serving as the only federal employees in small towns, remote villages, and northern communities,” Jones said. “For thousands of Canadians, the post office is not just a workplace, it’s the heart of local life.”
He described the transformation process Canada Post is moving forward with could eliminate services that sustain rural and northern Canadians.
“Yet no costing, no economic or service impact analysis and no meaningful consultations have been made public,” he said.
Simpson made similar comments about the proposed changes. She said they would gut the post office and eliminate thousands of unionized jobs.
“The announcement directly interfered with collective bargaining and gave management the green light to rewrite our agreements without negotiations and without the union.”
Changes necessary, but must be sensible
Representatives of organizations that greatly depend on Canada Post addressed a parliamentary committee this week, and all three said the postal service must be reformed to survive.
News Media Canada, an organization representing hundreds of publications across the country,
President and CEO Paul Deegan said Canada Post is an important distribution vehicle for many community newspapers in Canada.
“Especially in rural and remote parts of the country,” Deegan said. “And we deeply appreciate the work that the thousands of postal employees do to get our newspapers to Canadians.”
But Deegan said leadership at both Canada Post and CUPW have shown a disregard for community newspapers.
“They seem to have forgotten that we are customers and good paying ones at that,” he said.
Deegan cited two examples of this disregard.
The first was Canada Post deciding that community newspapers with commercial inserts would no longer be exempt from its Consumer’s Choice program, which allows Canadians to opt out of receiving junk mail.
“Like advertisements on the pages of a newspaper, commercial inserts or flyers pay for the content our journalists produce in those newspapers,” Deegan said. “Let me be clear, community newspapers with a flyer from the local grocery or hardware franchisee are not junk mail.”
Deegan said the decision could cost a publication $120,000 annually in flyer revenue, which is enough to support three jobs.
“Without that revenue, those three jobs are at high risk,” he said. “This arbitrary decision was made with zero stakeholder consultation or economic or social impact analysis.”
The second example was CUPW’s decision in September that postal workers would no longer process or deliver unaddressed flyers called neighbourhood mail.
“Whether intended or not it held our community newspapers hostage and deprived many Canadians of the fact-based, fact-checked information that our journalists produce,” Deegan said. “Again, let me stress, community newspapers are not junk mail.”
The Union of Quebec Municipalities (UQM) represents approximately 85 per cent of the province’s population.
“We understand the need for reform to enable the organization to adapt its business model to the current context,” said Xavier-Antoine Lalande, the mayor of Saint-Colomban, Que. “However, this reform must be guided by the logic of territorial equity and social cohesion.”
Lalande said reform can’t be done at the expense of local communities, especially the most vulnerable individuals.
