The federal minister who oversees Canada Post will face a committee of his peers to answer questions about his decision to push ahead with sweeping changes to the post office and the ongoing labour strife between the Crown corporation and its union.
Joël Lightbound, minister for government transformation, public works and procurement, is set to testify before the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates on Thursday afternoon in Ottawa as it kicks off a series of hearings into the government’s directive to Canada Post to overhaul its operations.
“The Government cannot be permitted to make such drastic decisions when there has been next to no public consultation on the issues and while collective agreement bargaining remains unfinished,” said Jan Simpson, the national president of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, in a statement.
The hearings come after talks between the postal workers and Lightbound ended on a sour note last week when the minister refused to cede any ground to the union, which is trying to convince the feds to put the brakes on its plans. The union is in its second week of rotating strikes, which were launched Oct. 10 at the heels of a nationwide strike.
Arianne Reza and Lorenzo Ieraci, deputy minister and assistant deputy minister, respectively, at the Department of Public Works and Government Services, are also scheduled to address the committee on Thursday. They will be followed by individual witnesses, including business professors Ian Lee and Marvin Ryder, and Karine Monger, chief executive officer of the Quebec regional municipality MRC du Golfe-du-Saint-Laurent.
CUPW and Canada Post did not respond to the Star’s request for comments by the time of publication.
Lee, an associate professor at Carleton University’s Sprott School of Business, told the Star that the House of Commons committee invited him to speak and said he plans to back Canada Post’s shake-up to stop it from bleeding money, including cutting door-to-door delivery for about a quarter of Canadians.
“I’ve argued that they have to restructure. They have no choice, because their losses are going to go up year by year,” Lee said, adding that if an increasing number of Canadians are not using the post office, “it’s difficult to argue it’s an essential service.”
Lee said he thinks the Standing Committee is trying to investigate if there is a “compromise position” where Canada Post can be slimmed down, made financially sustainable, and still serve key communities.
“I don’t accept the argument that all businesses are using the post office,” said Lee. “The question is, are we going to charge everybody else a very large amount that gets bigger every year, to subsidize a very small number of users of the post office?”
Lightbound’s office told the Star in a statement that it wants to see the postal office “modernize and transform” so it can continue serving Canadians for years ahead, and encourages Canada Post and the union to come back to the bargaining table.
“Losing $10 million every day isn’t sustainable, and Canadians can’t keep paying that price,” the statement read.
Steven Tufts, a York University labour studies professor, said he believes nothing drastically new will come out of the hearings that will change the government’s mind.
“A lot of the remarks will reinforce the government’s positions, outside of the CUPW testimony,” he said.
Tufts said he expects the federal government will order postal workers back to full duty by mid-November and push the parties into arbitration, likely to avoid a rotating strike that could disrupt package deliveries ahead of the holiday season.
“The mandate, the committee meeting, the query, all this, I think, is trying to give the arbitrator some weapons to maybe really come down on a pro-management or CP position in the decision,” Tufts said.
University of Toronto professor Rafael Gomez said the Conservative Party has been showing more support for workers than in the past, and he expects the opposition members on the Standing Committee, chaired by Tory MP Kelly McCauley, to side with the postal workers.
When asked about how much influence the committee could have on the government, Gomez said, “It depends a lot on what comes out of the committee, what kind of answers or revelations or missteps … then how that’s picked up by the media and public perception that forms after.”
Contrary to Tufts, Lee said he doesn’t believe the government will issue back-to-work legislation, as it would only infuriate the union. He also doesn’t expect the issue to go to arbitration, since an arbitrator could impose a settlement that the government isn’t willing to fund.
He added that bargaining won’t accomplish much at this stage, and the government may end the saga by introducing a bill in Parliament to impose a restructuring on the Crown corp.
“We’re going through this charade — let’s get back to collective bargaining,” Lee said. “It implies that the management can solve the issues between them and CUPW, but they can’t, because they have no money.”
