The fight to privatize or deregulate Canada Post - The pressure is on - The next election is crucial

Canada Post’s competition has been working overtime on undermining our public post office since the Tories were elected. For the last year, international mailers have been campaigning to reduce Canada Post’s exclusive privilege. Now, the conservative think tank, the CD Howe Institute, is arguing for full privatization and deregulation.

 

International Mailers

International mailers or remailers collect mail here and ship it to other countries, usually developing countries, where the mail is processed and remailed at a lower cost.

Remailers may collect and ship mail, but Canada Post has the "exclusive privilege of collecting, transmitting and delivering letters" in order to finance the corporation's universal service obligation. Canada Post has taken legal action against remailers and won. Some remailers were given six months to get out of the business. In response, the International Mail Association, a coalition of private Canadian and international mail companies, started lobbying members of Parliament. This lobby coincided nicely with the last election period, which the Association used to demand a parliamentary review of the exclusive privilege provisions of the Canada Post Corporation Act.

In December, Lawrence Cannon, the federal minister responsible for Canada Post, told Parliament that he would review the problems faced by international mailers and examine "legislative options." The New Democratic Party (NDP) has raised concerns with Minister Cannon. To date, the Liberals and Bloc Quebecois have no official position on this issue. 

CUPW believes that the government may undermine Canada Post's ability to provide universal postal service, particularly in rural and remote parts of our country, if it decides to satisfy the concerns of international remailers by removing international letters from Canada Post's exclusive privilege to deliver letters.

The union is deeply concerned that only the NDP has raised concerns about this issue. We will be appearing before a parliamentary committee to raise our concerns in the weeks to come.

 

CD Howe Institute

In a move that appears to have been carefully timed to coincide with our negotiations, the CD Howe institute issued a report on February 12th which recommends privatization and gradual deregulation. The report suggests that privatization and deregulation in other countries has worked well. The fact is that very few countries have privatized their post office, and only two countries have had any long-term experience with deregulation, those being Sweden and New Zealand.  

Sweden abolished its letter monopoly in 1993. Since deregulation, the postage rate for large volume business mailers has declined considerably while the rate for small business and the public has increased enormously. In the ten years following deregulation, the price of the popular over domestic overnight 20 gram letter increased by 90 percent, far outstripping the accumulated inflation rate of 14 % (Note: a third of this increase was due to the imposition of a value added tax on postal services.) Postage rate increases for other products were even higher.

New Zealand was deregulated in 1998. Workers there have suffered a dramatic decline in wage levels.

 

No crisis at Canada Post

Canada Post's private sector competitors and conservative forces are out there lobbying members of Parliament from all parties with a view to obtaining more of the postal market by reducing or eliminating the corporation's exclusive privilege. It will be up to all of us to defend public postal service and jobs in the lead up to the next election.

You can get more information about the union's fight against privatization and deregulation from your local and the union's website:

http://www.publicpostoffice.ca/