Let's talk about where things are sitting with the postal strike, and why it's time for Canada Post to scale back its size and become a Crown corporation, or risk going broke, and maybe even get rid of Canada Post altogether.
00:00:00.700So let's talk about where things are sitting with the postal strike.
00:00:03.100I mean, what if you went on strike and nobody cared?
00:00:05.980You know, it's kind of like an ex who walks out the door and then, you know, okay, you shrug.
00:00:10.760And a month later, she phones you because she's all pissed that you didn't call.
00:00:13.100Hey, you walked out. It's your problem.
00:00:15.040Found out that you didn't really wander that much in the first place.
00:00:17.780Well, postal workers are learning that hard lesson right now, that their service, yeah,
00:00:20.820it isn't as essential to people as they thought it was.
00:00:22.920Nearly a month on the picket lines and all they've managed to accomplish is to lose public support
00:00:26.740and speed up Canada's transition to a paperless society.
00:00:30.000They can't hold Canadians hostage during the Christmas season any longer like they used to.
00:00:34.540Their strikes don't cripple the nation. All they do is annoy them.
00:00:37.460Demand for letter mail is not going to come back.
00:00:39.600And the only people who appear not to know this are the postal workers in the union.
00:00:42.900Canada Post was given a monopoly on letter delivery, but even with that, they can't fund themselves through it.
00:00:47.880Letter mail has dropped by over a half in volume since 2016, and it's still dropping.
00:00:51.960Canada Post has lost $3 billion since 2018, and the losses are mounting faster.
00:00:56.240They might be on track to lose $1 billion in 2024 alone.
00:00:59.840This hemorrhaging can't continue, and unless something dramatic changes, Canada Post is going to go broke.
00:01:05.000Now, as a crown corporation, it's supposed to be self-funding.
00:01:07.940They love constantly saying, hey, we're not taking tax dollars.
00:01:10.120Well, yeah, actually, if they go broke, we get to pay for it.
00:01:13.900So taxpayers are liable for the debts incurred, and Canada's already in a rather dire economic situation with massive government debt, low productivity, and a rising cost of living.
00:01:22.620Adding billions more to the debt load if Canada Post goes under won't be doing us any favors.
00:01:26.440Not only should Canada Post refuse to give in to the union demands for raises, it's got to commit to scaling its size and scope dramatically down to face contemporary reality.
00:01:36.920The route to solvency for Canada Post might be harsh for its employees, but it's actually pretty simple.
00:01:41.840With 68,000 employees, labor is by far the biggest expense with Canada Post, and that's where the cuts are going to come.
00:01:47.060We've got to stop all direct-to-doorstep letter delivery.
00:01:50.860It's ridiculously expensive and labor-intensive.
00:01:53.380Over two-thirds of Canadians have already had their mail coming to some form of community mailbox or another already.
00:01:58.440The only reason the transition didn't fully go to community boxes was because Justin Trudeau cut a deal with the Postal Union back in 2016.
00:02:04.720Well, that deal's got to end, and the community boxes have got to go everywhere.
00:02:07.840One worker can cover the ground of dozens of carriers by just traveling from box to box to deliver mail rather than walking house to house.
00:02:14.420And delivery no longer needs to be daily.
00:02:16.920If a person has a pressing immediate need to have a document delivered to their door, they can pay Express Post or a private courier to deal with it.
00:02:22.960Postal workers deliver a little more than flyers daily these days anyways.
00:02:26.020There isn't enough demand to justify going out five days a week.
00:02:31.580Canada Post should also just get out of the parcel delivery business.
00:02:34.380I mean, they had a near monopoly on it a few years ago, and they blew it.
00:02:37.060The private market has filled the parcel void with superior service, and now has a majority market share.
00:02:42.340Canada Post might as well just divest from it.
00:02:44.260At most, all Canada Post should be doing is providing some subsidized service to remote regions, but that's about it.
00:02:49.580By ending home delivery, ending parcel services, and cutting to one day a week, Canada Post should be able to shed tens of thousands of positions.
00:02:56.380I mean, they'll still have a legislative monopoly on letter service, and even if it manages to lose money in that size, at least the losses will be smaller than the current ones.
00:03:02.420And yes, lots of jobs are going to be lost.