Government Operations Committee on May 29th, 2024

[Doug Ettinger]

Thank you. There are some good questions there.

The first thing to stress is that we are in active negotiations with CUPW right now, so I can't say too much. However, I will say this: Alternative day delivery is not on the table with them, and it's not something we're looking at. We understand the program.

Actually, at first glance, when you look at it, you say, “Well, why wouldn't it be reasonable to deliver two days per week or three days per week?” The issue is that our network is a collapsed network that carries parcels, direct mail, and letters together. Think about the letter carrier. Even if we only delivered letters every second day, we still have to go through the route because to be competitive in e-commerce and parcels, we have to be there every day.

In fact, the answer to this now—and it does dovetail with what you said—is that we need seven-day delivery. That's what we need. We don't need fewer days. It's mainly to compete on parcels because that's where that market is.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

It is my understanding that [Technical difficulty—Editor].

I'm sorry; I have mic issues.

It is my understanding that the union is entirely open to that suggestion and that it's willing to work with you on that. Again, in terms of that expansion, are you fully looking at expansion? Even food delivery, as we've seen, and that competition that you're talking about from those smaller businesses would help with that.

[Doug Ettinger]

Yes, we're—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm sorry. I have to interrupt.

We haven't left any time for an answer, I'm afraid.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

I had mic issues.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm sorry.

Perhaps you could get back to the committee in writing on some of the issues brought forward. Actually, while we're talking about that, the committee has passed a motion that for such information we request everything back within 21 days.

Now we'll go to Mrs. Kusie, and then we'll finish this round with Mrs. Atwin.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate it.

Mr. Ettinger, I'm sure that Canada Post believes in the importance of privacy for Canadians. Of course, as you have mentioned several times over, you are here to serve Canadians. I'm sure you want to responsibly act on your mandate.

I'm just concerned about your decision to fulfill your mandate in taking the personal information of Canadians without their informed consent and selling it to third parties.

What words can you provide to Canadians to ensure them that you are ethically fulfilling your mandate while disagreeing with the recommendations set out by independent officers of Parliament, please?

[Doug Ettinger]

Thank you for that question. That's an important question.

I'll start off by saying that the trust of Canadians when it comes to privacy is second to none. We take that very seriously. We announced some changes to our Smartmail Marketing program—I guess it was at the end of February—following a concern. One complaint came through the Privacy Commissioner. We've made a number of changes related to this that are already effective.

One is no longer offering aggregated online shopping trends at the postal level for retailers to review.

We've discontinued using data from publicly available directories combined with our own operational data to validate an incomplete address. In that case, we've stopped doing that, but we're only trying to make the service better.

We're working hard to increase the transparency and awareness of our direct mail marketing program, so that people know how to opt out of it if they want to opt out. We're doing that through online, on social media, in our post offices and so on.

We continue to work with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner. We have a good, ongoing dialogue with him and his team and we respect the Privacy Act to the nth degree and will continue to respect it going forward.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Thank you very much for that response.

Mr. Ettinger, my next question is, does Canada Post keep track of who they are selling Canadians' private information to?

[Doug Ettinger]

As I said, we treat data in a very careful and protected way. It's in our database, which is protected within our four walls.

Essentially, we help businesses ensure that their lists are up to date and accurate for delivery. We very much protect...and adhere to the Privacy Act as we're going through that process.

Again, we've made a number of changes based on the review of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner. I cannot speak for them, but I'm told that we have reached an area where we're comfortable that we've made the changes we need to make to deal with that very important issue.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Then I'm hopeful that this information guarantees that this information is not going to bad actors to target Canadians.

[Doug Ettinger]

No.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Excellent.

Can you guarantee that this information is not being sold to other countries that could use this information to interfere in Canada's democracy?

[Doug Ettinger]

Yes, absolutely.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Excellent, I'm very happy to hear that.

Mr. Chair, with the time I have left, I'd like to put on notice the following motion, please:

That this committee report to the House that it condemns the stealing of mail.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

You're putting it on notice.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Yes, thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Ettinger.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

We'll go to Mrs. Atwin, please.

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Thank you very much. I'm happy to close out our discussion this afternoon or this evening. I guess it's quite late now.

Thank you so much for being here and answering our questions.

I really want to circle back to the community hub pilots that are happening. I was only aware of two locations, so I'm really excited to hear that it's now four.

Specifically, of course, I'm familiar with the Membertou, Nova Scotia one. It's close to my neck of the woods in New Brunswick.

It offers an expanded range of products and services. It has things like parcel lockers, which you mentioned, self-serve, contactless induction of items to be mailed, access to financial services, the Canada Post MyMoney Loan, remittance services, foreign currency exchange, cheque cashing, ATMs and also small business support. There's mention of rentable meeting rooms, public wireless Internet access and access to computers.

This is remarkable to me, especially at a time when we're talking about other closures that we're seeing, or other rural communities that are not seeing these kinds of investments and this kind of energy put into modernizing or meeting the needs of a community.

I'm just curious. What's the process? How did this happen? How can we ensure that this expands?

[Doug Ettinger]

Thank you. You're right; Membertou is probably the closest one to you. You're in Fredericton, I believe. It's a great city, by the way.

We're so proud of those four, as I mentioned: Membertou; High Prairie, Alberta; Fort Qu'Appelle, Saskatchewan; and Little Current, which is on Manitoulin Island.

The key thing on those is that we engaged the local first nations community right at the beginning of the projects, and we wanted them to design the post offices with their culture in mind, with their artifacts, with their artwork, with their colour palettes and so on. You missed one thing on the list, though. They have a podcast centre in Membertou.

The whole idea behind that is to make them more relevant, like a community gathering spot where you have free Wi-Fi and resources for small businesses. It's really to help those small businesses connect with one another, network with one another.

I was there with Chief Terry Paul when we opened Membertou. He was so happy about it, and so was I. We're monitoring those results. We're learning from them, and we're trying to adjust.

Iqaluit is another example of that, where part of the intent for Iqaluit was for small business there, too. When you're starting a small business, it's a lonely venture—you may know that—and they need all the help they can get. We can put them in touch with BDC. We can put them in touch with lawyers or whatever they need. We want to be the resource that really adds value, and that's our vision for the post office of the future, that it has more stickiness. We're adding more value for these entrepreneurs.

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Are there additional costs incurred by the community for these extra services? Are these new builds? Are these existing constructions?

[Doug Ettinger]

These are a little bit of both, but Membertou, for example, was a new build. I think Manitoulin was a new build. Iqaluit is a new build. The others were refurbishments, but you wouldn't know it. It looks brand new and very different from what it was before.

Again, the idea is selfishly for us to build loyalty with those small businesses. Sometimes those small businesses turn into big businesses, and we want to be part of that journey, and we want to help them. We have a program called solutions for small business. We have 500,000 members that are all small businesses, so we're trying to tap into those folks and connect to the community hubs.

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

That's excellent.

We also mentioned a little bit about how Canada Post is looking at carbon offsets, for example, and really taking responsibility for the climate crisis. I'm sure there are also impending impacts that we're already dealing with. I'm looking at some of the issues from service interruptions that occurred last year because of floods or forest fires, how long they lasted and the costs that were associated with them. We also noticed, of course, in Lytton, B.C., that it had disrupted service.

What kind of mitigation plans are in place as preventative measures or being prepared for these kinds of emergencies?

[Doug Ettinger]

That's a really good question, but I'll let Manon answer that. That group and her operations team are the ones on the ground who deal with that.

[Manon Fortin]

Thank you, Doug.

Being in thousands of communities across Canada means that we're exposed to what the community is exposed to as well. That can come through the form of extreme weather events. It could be a wildfire. We have become really good at, first, keeping our employees safe and then being as quick as possible to provide contingencies for the Canadians who live in those communities to still be able to receive their mail and to restore service as quickly as possible.