OTTAWA – The Liberal government has ordered Canada Post to improve service in rural Canada.
And it is promising to extend indefinitely the two-year-old moratorium on rural post office closings.
Public works minister Diane Marleau, minister responsible for Canada Post, told an Oct. 8 news conference she has instructed Canada Post chair AndrŽ Ouellet to prepare a proposal on how to guarantee mail delivery standards in rural areas.
It could also include suggestions on how to use rural post offices as centres for providing other government services or documents.
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“I have asked for that as quickly as possible,” said the Northern Ontario MP. “This is a priority for me.”
In the House of Commons, Marleau said she will be meeting with rural representatives to talk about ways to improve service.
Marleau made her announcements as she released a copy of a Canada Post mandate review that offered a scathing assessment of the legacy of the Canada Post business plan, defended so vigorously by the former Conservative government and then post office minister Harvie Andre.
Consultant George Radwanski, who headed the Canada Post mandate review which held hearings across the country, said the result of Canada Post’s pursuit of profit has been worse service for average Canadians.
Few have been as hard hit as rural Canada, where Canada Post will not set standards for how quickly it should deliver the mail.
“There is no readily apparent justification for the lack of any delivery standard in rural areas,” Radwanski wrote in his report. “An argument can conceivably be made that it might take a day or two longer in these areas than in the cities, though even this is not self-evident.
But it is inappropriate and discriminatory for the corporation to allow itself an indefinite time to deliver the mail in rural Canada.”
Radwanski told a news conference that letters, briefs and focus groups showed him and other review panel members that rural residents are unhappy with the post office.
And closing rural post offices is seen as an attack on rural society.
“No less important (than mail delivery) is the role of the post office itself in those communities,” said the report. “It serves as a social hub, as a federal presence and in effect, as evidence that the national government still cares about each community and its residents.”
He said the post office has created tiers of service with the most attention reserved for money-making activities, while rural services were near the bottom of the list.
Radwanski said a message of rural unhappiness came in 34 written submissions, 55 letters, petitions containing more than 1,300 names, presentations at public hearings in Newfoundland and Saskatchewan, and in rural focus groups.
