An Open Letter from Owen Sound to Ottawa: Stop Service Cuts at Canada Post
A reader questions why taxpayer-funded Canada Post would be treated more like a corporation expected to turn a profit for shareholders than the public service it was intended to be.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Dear Prime Minister Carney,
First of all, thank you for the fine leadership that you are providing for our country in these truly strange times. Like many of my fellow Canadians, I have confidence in your abilities and will do my part to support our Country.
Today, I’m asking you to re-consider the direction that Canada Post seems to be taking regarding at-home postal delivery.
Currently, I see reports of “record-breaking losses” for Canada Post, and am concerned that by upholding the idea that mail delivery is a business and not a national service to be proud of, we will lose this important bit of glue that holds our wide-flung nation together.
I happily pay my taxes and receive at-home delivery at a reasonable cost. And I do believe that it IS reasonable, given that Canada Post charges one low price to deliver a letter country-wide!
Canada Post’s national mandate means it doesn’t compete on a level playing field with private corporations who get to cherry-pick delivery destinations and prices. As a Canadian, I am proud to support a service that is available to all citizens.
How is tax-payer funding this vital service that knits us all together any different than paying for highways that connect us, or the military that protects us? Surely these are all vital nation-building services that must not be expected to somehow turn a profit?
If we reduce Canada Post to a corporate bottom-line approach, we will inevitably pay a larger price. I don’t have to tell you that privatization of these kinds of services initially appeals as a cost saving measure, but show me ANYWHERE where the service and savings remain over even a medium term.
Because you have the hearts and minds of many Canadians, I believe that you will be able to re-frame the cost of Canada Post as the important nation-connecting service that it is.
Please don’t allow this vital service to be denigrated any further.
Respectfully,
Leigh Greaves
Owen Sound
Letters to the Editor do not necessarily reflect the opinions or beliefs of The Owen Sound Current and its editor or publisher.
Perhaps there needs to be some "middle road" solution. We still rely on mail for a lot of our communication. So perhaps it should be looked on as an essential service that needs government funding. On the other hand, perhaps the cost of mailing a letter should be increased. I sent an envelope by courier and it is something like $30 versus the $3 Canada post charges. Both went to the same location. I used the courier for faster delivery but it only saves a couple of days. I'm not sure it was worth it.
We need to keep mail delivery so we need to figure out how this can be done.
Canada Post isn't taxpayer funded. While a Crown Corp, it operates independently. The fiscal losses are covered by loans from the Federal government and other providers of capital, but any financing CP does receive from the government has been and will have to be paid back. That's not taxpayer funding.
Some of the problems are caused by government policies. They should have done away with door to door delivery a decade ago. There are rural areas of Canada that Purolator (owned by CP), UPS and and FedEx that use Canada Post for the last part of the delivery, and that has been forced on CP by government policy and they have been strangled by costs that have risen far beyond what the couriers will pay for a very expensive logistical service.
Government rules and regulations have also hampered CP/Purolator from following the Deutsche Post/DHL model.
Postal mail delivery services won't exist in any form that we see today globally in the next decade. That planning should have been started 15 years ago when then CEO said it was coming (name escapes me). Adapt or die.