The sweeping changes being proposed by Canada Post are critical if the beleaguered Crown corporation is to regain its financial footing and viability, CEO Deepak Chopra said Wednesday.
Chopra appeared before the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, which reconvened for an emergency session to examine the company's plans, including phasing out door-to-door delivery in urban centres.
Canada Post’s five-point plan, unveiled last week, proposes moving to one-stop community mailboxes, increasing the price of stamps and cutting the workforce by up to 8,000 positions.
“We project that it will help bring Canada Post to financial sustainability by 2019,” Chopak told the committee. “In other words, the five-point action plan gets us back to the foundation under which the corporation was set up, meeting the two core mandates: to be financially self-sufficient and provides postal service that meets the needs of the people of Canada.”
Chopra said Canada Post must keep up with the digital world in order to survive.
"If the mail is changing its shape and size, don't we think the mailbox should change its shape and size too?" he said.
"So what we're trying to do is adapt (to) the changing needs of Canadians."
Four of the five initiatives are expected to save Canada Post between $700 million and $900 million annually. The corporation reported a loss of $129 million in the last quarter alone.
Critics have blasted the proposed business model changes, saying other cost-cutting measures and revenue-generating strategies could have been explored first.
In an interview with CTV’s Power Play Wednesday evening, Chopra defended the fact that executive salaries and bonuses were not cut to help improve the bottom line.
Chopra said when the size of Canada Post’s workforce goes down, so too will the management structure. For now, however, management compares “to any other $7.5-billion corporation that is an extensive logistics, supply chain and transportation network.”
“When you are turning around a company, you need the best team on board that can execute it and can bring you out on the other end,” Chopra said.
He said he is focused on fulfilling his mandate “to bring the business back to profitability and not have any doubt that we’re going to have a bailout from taxpayers” and is not focused on whether Canada Post should be privatized.
Meanwhile, the Liberals and NDP both criticized the changes, saying they create hardships for the elderly and disabled, and anyone who may find their community mailboxes are not within walking distance.
During a news conference Wednesday morning, NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair said there are “a number of other options that could have been put on the table” had the ruling Conservatives collaborated with others.
Chopra told Power Play that Canada Post has been operating community mailboxes for more than 25 years, so it already has plans in place to address different communities’ unique concerns.
He has met with “a lot” of seniors, for example, who participate in the digital economy by online shopping, and also have the physical ability to travel to pick up their packages.
“Most of the seniors would like to stay active, be driving, be living a full life and they want to participate in the digital economy as much as other Canadians,” Chopra said.
Although Canada Post has “several arrangements in place” to deal with customers with limited mobility, if certain neighbourhoods present unique challenges “we will find other innovative solutions.”
Mulcair also accused the Conservatives of curtailing debate on the issue by unveiling the plan after Parliament adjourned for its Christmas break.
Transport Minister Lisa Raitt defended the action plan in an interview that aired on CTV’s Question Period Sunday, saying it imperative that Canada Post “be self-sufficient.”
Raitt also said she had expected Parliament to still be in session when the action plan was unveiled, and had “fully anticipated” answering questions from MPs in the House of Commons.
In addition to Chopra, the Conservatives had invited several organizations to speak at the meeting, including the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, the Conference Board of Canada, and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
Meanwhile, CUPW had planned to deliver thousands of postcards to Raitt Wednesday, as an expression of Canadians’ anger over the closing and downsizing of public post offices.
With files from The Canadian Press
