Canada Post workers on nationwide strike after government demands reforms
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Competition divides revenue, which leads to lower wages and benefits. The only people that benefit from competition, are the ones who own the company. And Canada Post is a government service. Its success should not be tied to profits.
The only people that benefit from competition, are the ones who own the company.
Ask people in BC how much they benefit from ICBC having a monopoly on car insurance…
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They don’t need to turn a profit but the costs need to be financially sustainable. I don’t think banning competition is a good move, that’s unnecessary. The question should be posed to Canadians at large: what is CP’s services worth to us, as a nation? Lemmy’s views will certainly be skewed but we need an honest holistic view. Based on godoflies@lemmy.ca calculation in this thread I’m cool with the $50 a year ‘fee’, but that will certainly grow with their losses and they do need capital investment to improve/modernize aspects of the service.
Canada post’s costs are less than 1% of the government budget.
If we’re looking to save money there’s better places to look.
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They don’t need to turn a profit but the costs need to be financially sustainable. I don’t think banning competition is a good move, that’s unnecessary. The question should be posed to Canadians at large: what is CP’s services worth to us, as a nation? Lemmy’s views will certainly be skewed but we need an honest holistic view. Based on godoflies@lemmy.ca calculation in this thread I’m cool with the $50 a year ‘fee’, but that will certainly grow with their losses and they do need capital investment to improve/modernize aspects of the service.
Oh I am aware that they don’t really need to turn a profit. Net zero / cost recovery is more than good enough. And I am in no way implying using government legislation to regulate that market. We need Canada Post to change their business model where they can still retain their currently hired employees. Are they seriously not able to make significant changes to their existing model to be more competitive? It reeks of a non-innovative c-suite and board (and government officials) unwilling to take the hard road of actually working with the employees to make complex organizational changes. They are taking the easy way out via ‘standard accounting/business practices’ by slashing services and worker layoffs. That’s the easy way out.
What does the hard way look like? How about sitting down with union employees down to the lowest worker level and actually find ways for cost savings and new business opportunities to patch the shortfall? I don’t to believe that CP management truly has tried other than finger-pointing at external private businesses stealing their lunch from underneath them or government legislation that’s unwilling to change (because the fed gov is really the one in control here - so again, I’m saying they’re just taking the easy way out. You think an elected federal government employee is going to sit down and do the hard work to go around talking to a large number of union employees to find a way through all this? My bet is no - they’ll take the easy way out.)
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It is not ‘vital’.
Unless the government is going to make Internet access an essential service and make sure all homes have access the same way they have access to electricity and water…
Yes, it is vital that everyone have access to mail.
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Their shortfall was 841 million last year. Who is supposed to pay for that?
Taxes. It’s a government service.
The Department of National Defence had a shortfall of $28.8 billion last year, who is supposed to pay for that?The 2024 Federal budget had a revenue of 498 billion. The Canada Post “shortfall” was less than 0.2% of the budget.
I don’t see why it should be subsidized with taxes.
Deutsche Post manages to successfully keep mail flowing as an independent self funded service, why can’t Canada Post?
The simple fact of the matter is that the union is unwilling to budge on finding ways to improve efficiency because the more employees they have paying dues, the more they get paid.
If this was a private company, they’d be willing to work it out because they’d be afraid of the business folding, but here they think the well runs not just deep, but infinitely so. -
I agree with your notion of “evolving it” to fit the needs and requirements of today however I don’t agree with your other points.
Their plan is to remove door to door entirely, not just limit it to 3 days (which, I wouldn’t have any major qualms about at this time if that was the endgame, which it isn’t)
However I shouldn’t need to be disabled to receive this basic level of service, nor do I want to hobble over to the mailbox or postal office that’s “very close to my house” because the current one is a 15 minute walk on a good day, and a 35 minute trudge through half snow covered roads on a bad one. And if we’re going with this, hypothetically, how would I even know I have any mail? Do I get a call? Do I get a notice at my door? Do I just have to show up every so often and check?
If it’s option 1, I can assure you that my phone’s functions are set by default to filter and drop any unknown calls. So that’s far from an optimal approach.
If it’s option 3, I will not be randomly dropping by the postal office or box because currently nowhere near (or on) any common route that I take, and I have no reason to do a random cold check especially if I work primarily from home
And if it’s option 2, you’re already here to deliver my notice, might as well bring my mail instead.
Besides the above outlined items, I’m not going to touch the time sensitive items argument because Canada post handles more than just mail, they also handle biological deliveries, medicine, restricted substances, stuff like live bees, all your legal documents, subpoenas, medical, etc. plus a bunch of other services that I’m probably forgetting.
Community mailboxes are almost always a block away or less. Everywhere I’ve lived in the last 10 years I’ve just had to cross the street to check the mail. There’s no 15 minute walk…
If you’re used to having your mail right at your door, then having to go check it is a little extra hassle, but really not terrible. I check mine like once or twice a week.
Maybe Canada Post could implement something like USPS has: They’ll send you an email summary of pictures of the mail arriving each day.
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What is getting so lost in all this social media outrage, is no one is proposing the total ending of mail delivery here. It’s still going to occur, just with some adjustments coming to make the service less of a capital burner, and maybe more of a service that’s matched to the reality of a modern age. It doesn’t make much sense to me that everyone is so opposed to this. Ol’ Grise Fiord is going to still receive their mail under this new proposed system. Well I mean they were until the postal union led their employees off the job once again for the umpteenth time.
Well I mean they were until the postal union led their employees off the job once again for the umpteenth time.
Canada Post continuously refuses to negotiate with the union and relies on the Government forcing them back to work instead of coming to an agreement, and you’re surprised that they go on strike again?
I’m surprised that it took this long and that the service I was receiving was decent.
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The $13B was production based tax credits. No one explains how government funding works, or the milestones.
Maybe instead of giving away tax credits, they should use those taxes to improve Canada Post…
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Could you not return to the passport office or the bank to take care of that? We all need to set fire to billions of dollars a year because you require white gloved seven day delivery, to your door, of these things?
Passports shouldn’t be coming through the mail either, I’ve always felt that way about this, regardless of the current situation. You should be returning to a desk to pick up such an important document, and providing proper ID to a properly trained individual to receive such a thing, in a controlled environment.
We all need to set fire to billions of dollars a year…
Funding Canada Post is less than 1% of the government’s budget. This is not the place to focus on cutting costs.
You should be returning to a desk to pick up such an important document, and providing proper ID to a properly trained individual to receive such a thing, in a controlled environment.
How much is that going to cost? The amount of wasted money and man hours to do that justifies the cost of Canada Post.
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Community mailboxes are almost always a block away or less. Everywhere I’ve lived in the last 10 years I’ve just had to cross the street to check the mail. There’s no 15 minute walk…
If you’re used to having your mail right at your door, then having to go check it is a little extra hassle, but really not terrible. I check mine like once or twice a week.
Maybe Canada Post could implement something like USPS has: They’ll send you an email summary of pictures of the mail arriving each day.
Never heard of the USPS approach but it does seem interesting as a solution, thanks for sharing
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The only people that benefit from competition, are the ones who own the company.
Ask people in BC how much they benefit from ICBC having a monopoly on car insurance…
Ask anyone in BC what their private health insurance looks like these days. Lots of companies out there, and none of them are offering plans anywhere close to what they used to. The difference is, ICBC has the largest cash reserve for payouts…while private insurance companies only have a fraction. That’s why premiums go up and services go down. None of them alone, are able to make enough money to sustain the level of service we expect. Put them all together, and they should. But only if you also remove the profit margins from the equation.
You want to fix ICBC…then we need to regulate it better. The more it behaves like a private insurance company, the worse the service gets. Treat it like a non-profit public service, and watch it come back to where it should be.
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I don’t see why it should be subsidized with taxes.
Deutsche Post manages to successfully keep mail flowing as an independent self funded service, why can’t Canada Post?
The simple fact of the matter is that the union is unwilling to budge on finding ways to improve efficiency because the more employees they have paying dues, the more they get paid.
If this was a private company, they’d be willing to work it out because they’d be afraid of the business folding, but here they think the well runs not just deep, but infinitely so.I don’t see why it should be subsidized with taxes.
I don’t see why 0.2% of the annual budget should be a focus of cost concerns. The total expenditure in the 2024 Federal budget was $538 billion dollars. If we subtract the cost of Canada Post from that it would be… About $538 billion dollars.
If this was a private company, they’d be willing to work it out because they’d be afraid of the business folding
That goes for the business refusing to negotiate with the union. If it was a private company they wouldn’t have the option of waiting until the government forces everyone back to work without an agreement.
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What changed for 2018 to turn gains to losses?
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Community mailboxes are almost always a block away or less. Everywhere I’ve lived in the last 10 years I’ve just had to cross the street to check the mail. There’s no 15 minute walk…
If you’re used to having your mail right at your door, then having to go check it is a little extra hassle, but really not terrible. I check mine like once or twice a week.
Maybe Canada Post could implement something like USPS has: They’ll send you an email summary of pictures of the mail arriving each day.
What if you live in a very rural place? I shouldn’t have to drive to retrieve my mail which would surely happen as there aren’t enough houses nearby to warrant it being a community box location. I’d likely make sure I receive nothing via Canada Post anymore as much as possible, and they can fill some community box with junk mail until there’s no more room.
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“The bottom line is this: Canada Post is effectively insolvent,” Lightbound said earlier Thursday.
“It provides an essential service to Canadians, and in particular to rural, remote and Indigenous communities, and Canadians are rightfully attached to it and want it saved. However, repeated bailouts from the federal government are not the solution.”
FFS it’s a service not a business; profit is not the goal. Paying bills for services isn’t ‘bailing out’ your service provider, it’s paying for what you’ve used.
Mail transit is essential for a modern civilization, and it’s not something that should be privately controlled. Having private options is fine, but there should ALWAYS be a federal mail service.
And it’s not like private businesses offer service to the remote parts of the country. I find it odd how you can mandate it serves every address and has to be profitable. Those two things do not mesh. If you want it profitable it well drop serving every address.
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Good. Eliminating all door to door deliveries is not the answer and whoever came up with that rationale needs to removed immediately.
And again, for the people in the back: Canada post is a service. It doesn’t make money. It costs money. Same way public healthcare does.
Why are they trying to spin it as a business that needs to generate profit or undertake cost cutting measures to exist and continue providing services that are still being widely used?
Ah cut door to door delivery. Only a select few get it anyways.
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I agree with your notion of “evolving it” to fit the needs and requirements of today however I don’t agree with your other points.
Their plan is to remove door to door entirely, not just limit it to 3 days (which, I wouldn’t have any major qualms about at this time if that was the endgame, which it isn’t)
However I shouldn’t need to be disabled to receive this basic level of service, nor do I want to hobble over to the mailbox or postal office that’s “very close to my house” because the current one is a 15 minute walk on a good day, and a 35 minute trudge through half snow covered roads on a bad one. And if we’re going with this, hypothetically, how would I even know I have any mail? Do I get a call? Do I get a notice at my door? Do I just have to show up every so often and check?
If it’s option 1, I can assure you that my phone’s functions are set by default to filter and drop any unknown calls. So that’s far from an optimal approach.
If it’s option 3, I will not be randomly dropping by the postal office or box because currently nowhere near (or on) any common route that I take, and I have no reason to do a random cold check especially if I work primarily from home
And if it’s option 2, you’re already here to deliver my notice, might as well bring my mail instead.
Besides the above outlined items, I’m not going to touch the time sensitive items argument because Canada post handles more than just mail, they also handle biological deliveries, medicine, restricted substances, stuff like live bees, all your legal documents, subpoenas, medical, etc. plus a bunch of other services that I’m probably forgetting.
Nice one community mailboxes are close to the house. And most people already use them. So why should a select few get special treatment.
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What if you live in a very rural place? I shouldn’t have to drive to retrieve my mail which would surely happen as there aren’t enough houses nearby to warrant it being a community box location. I’d likely make sure I receive nothing via Canada Post anymore as much as possible, and they can fill some community box with junk mail until there’s no more room.
Already happening rural places already have community mailboxes and have for a very long time. At least all the relatives I have known. Guess what nobody died and it worked fine.
Man the entitlement of people who are already the minority of people. When most of Canada already has mailboxes. Hell I didn’t even know door to door service was even a thing till they threatened to remove it last time.
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Their shortfall was 841 million last year. Who is supposed to pay for that?
Taxes. It’s a government service.
The Department of National Defence had a shortfall of $28.8 billion last year, who is supposed to pay for that?The 2024 Federal budget had a revenue of 498 billion. The Canada Post “shortfall” was less than 0.2% of the budget.
Why should my taxes pay so you can get door service. I’ve never had that in my life. So why should 75% of the people pay so 25% can get door service. If you want it yiu should pay for it.
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Here’s the thing, right now for my 2-3 days of mail delivery per week, the postal service employee walks by my house every day.
The flyers that get dropped off on non mail days could just as easily be dropped off on the other 2-3 days instead.
This means that effectively for every piece of mail delivered to my house the 40-60% of the ‘last mile’ part of the postage costs are wasted on extra unneeded trips to/past my door.
For normal mail delivery we already have 5-10 day delivery timeframes. Anyone who accepts that variability doesn’t need daily delivery, and those that do need that clockwork delivery are using services like UPS or FedEx.And we don’t need to door delivery either it’s a waste. Most people already don’t get it. So what we give it to everyone Wich well increase the budget of Canada Post by alot. Or they get ride of it. Why should only about a quarter of people get special treatment.
