Letter to Rob Merrifield, Minister of State of Transport - Re: Changes to the Canada Post Corporation Act Concerning Remail

Rob Merrifield, Minister of State of Transport
Place de Ville, Tower C, 29^th Floor
330 Sparks Street
Ottawa, Ontario  
K1A 0N5

Dear Mr. Merrifield:

Re: Changes to the Canada Post Corporation Act Concerning Remail

I am writing to state the opposition of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers to the decision of the federal government to amend the Canada Post Corporation Act to legalize the activities of the remailers. As you know both Canada Post Corporation and CUPW have voiced our concerns on many occasions that allowing the remailers to continue to siphon off CPC’s lettermail volumes and revenues would erode CPC’s abilities to provide service in remote and rural areas. Indeed, CPC President Moya Greene has estimated that the illegal activities of the international remailers result in a loss of revenue for CPC of between $60 to $80 million dollars annually.

During our meeting of May 7, 2009 you stated that the government intended to take time to review the report and engage in consultations before it comments on the recommendations of the report of the Canada Post Corporation Strategic Review (CPCSR). Instead you have acted unilaterally to introduce legislation to legalize the activities of the remailers.  We wish to know why the government has acted only on this one recommendation, out of sixty, which was never explained in the CPCSR report. Your actions will have a detrimental impact on the finances of CPC. We hope you will reconsider this decision and we would like to have an opportunity to discuss this matter with you directly.

We would also like to further discuss the government’s response to the other recommendations of the report of the CPCSR such as the proposal for a Service Charter defining standards for delivery, retail services, rural services, pricing and the exclusive privilege. As you know the CUPW supports this recommendation so long as those standards are reasonable and so long as there is adequate public consultation on the standards. We do have serious concerns about the recommendation to replace the current moratorium with new rules and procedures, such as allowing Canada Post to replace public post offices with private outlets and establishing a new definition of rural.

We are still waiting for a reply to our previous request of May 14, 2009 for information concerning the government’s initial response to both the service charter proposal and the recommendation to allow Canada Post to replace public post offices with private outlets.

Yours truly,

Denis Lemelin
National President

 

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Jack Layton, Leader, New Democratic Party
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