Poll results confirm large majority opposes postal deregulation

Attention News Editors:

OTTAWA, Sept. 2 - A new Ipsos Reid poll shows 69 per cent of the public oppose allowing private companies to deliver letters in Canada. The release of this poll coincides with the final day for submissions to the Canada Post Corporation Strategic Review, a government-appointed panel which is considering postal deregulation.

The Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) delivered its submission, which includes the poll results, and over 10,000 post cards to the review's advisory panel today.

'The public is overwhelmingly against postal deregulation and supports a strong universal public postal system,' said Denis Lemelin, CUPW National President. 'Hopefully, the review panel will remember these results when making their recommendations.'

The poll CUPW commissioned shows that 46 per cent strongly oppose and 23 per cent of people somewhat oppose allowing private companies to deliver letters in Canada. Conversely, 9 per cent of people strongly support and 18 per cent of people somewhat support allowing private sector competition.

The public isn't alone in their opposition to postal deregulation. Close to 400 municipal councils from across the country have also passed resolutions against postal deregulation.

'Postal deregulation would allow private companies to deliver mail in the lucrative urban areas while the public post office is left to service the higher-cost rural and isolated areas,' added Lemelin. 'This is a recipe for drastic service cuts, job loss and post office closures.'

The strategic review panel will release a final report with recommendations in December.

The survey was conducted from August 12-14, 2008. With a sample size of 1007 adult Canadians, the results are considered accurate to within /-3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, of what they would have been had the entire adult population of Canada been polled. These data were weighted to ensure the sample's regional and age/sex composition reflects that of the actual Canadian population according to Census data.