OTTAWA, Dec. 13, 2016 /CNW/ - While the parliamentary committee on the future of Canada Post is recommending the restoration of home delivery for some who lost it under the Conservatives, there's no mention of a postal bank, which many said would be a good move for Canada Post to reinforce its profitability.
"We're glad to see that about two-thirds of the people who lost home delivery might be getting it back. But we won't be satisfied until they all get it back. And the idea of bringing back a postal bank did not get the fair hearing it deserves," said Mike Palecek, National president of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers.
Recommendation #23 of the Parliamentary Committee report "The Way Forward for Canada Post" is that Canada Post should continue the moratorium on 'community mailbox' conversion and develop a plan to reinstate door-to-door delivery for communities that were converted after August 3rd, 2015. However, many conversions happened earlier in 2015 and in 2014. The union estimates that hundreds of thousands of households would still have lost their door-to-door delivery.
Palecek said that the Minister told him she would obtain the secret postal banking study conducted and suppressed by Canada Post during the previous Conservative government. According to Palecek, staff at Foote's office promised the union the study would be released, but that promise has been broken.
The Canada Post Review Task Force did release some promising figures, showing that 7% of Canadians said they would actually use a postal bank and another 22% of Canadians said they would probably use one. 27% of Indigenous people said they would certainly use a postal bank and 39% of businesses supported the idea. Postal banking is supported by well over 600 municipalities and, according to one poll, close to two-thirds of Canadians.
"We aren't going to give up on postal banking," said Palecek.
SOURCE Canadian Union of Postal Workers
Kevin Matthews, [email protected], 613-293-0547
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