OTTAWA – The author of a report which slammed Canada Post for allowing rural service to deteriorate has urged MPs to support better rural postal service.
Toronto consultant George Radwanski told a House of Commons committee last week the moratorium on rural post office closings should be made permanent.
He said rural residents have the right to expect speedier mail delivery and better service.
“I encourage you, if you support this, to speak up,” he told MPs who questioned him. “Rural postal service is vital to many in those communities.”
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Radwanski said in its zeal to make money and to become more like a private sector business, Canada Post in recent years had neglected rural customers and downplayed its core role of delivering the mail.
“Even unaddressed ad mail gets priority over delivering community newspapers,” he said. “There needs to be a significant improvement in rural service.”
Bloc QuŽbecois and Liberal MPs who raised the issue appeared to agree with him.
However, Reform party Calgary MP Stephen Harper wondered if the idea that rural residents receive service at the same price that urban residents receive it is reasonable.
He said it costs more to fly further distances, so why should mail be priced the same no matter how far it travels or how remote the area.
Harper quoted a Globe and Mail newspaper editorial suggesting the idea of universal, equal service is outdated. He asked Radwanski if, in the modern age, he would create a universal postal service if it did not exist.
Equal service for all
Radwanski said if the post office mandate of equal service across the country did not exist, he would favor inventing it.
“The least we can do in this country is say that wherever you live, you will get the same basic mail service,” he said. “Without some common services, why do you stay together? Yes, if it was up to me, I would invent it.”
Reform post office critic Bill Gilmour did not respond last week to several requests to his office for clarification of Reform party policy on rural postal service.
The party’s election platform proposal is that the post office be turned over to the private sector.
Meanwhile, British Columbia New Democrat Nelson Riis last week said he supports the proposal to maintain rural post offices.
However, he criticized the government decision to end Canada Post delivery of economy, unaddressed ad mail, often called junk mail.
Riis said this could mean a loss of work for as many as 17,000 low income Canadians who deliver flyers and advertisements, as well as a slap at small businesses which depends on this type of advertising.
Minister responsible Diane Marleau said Riis’s figures were exaggerated.
