Hi. Thank you the input. To clarify what I said was;
"Im not aware of any official declaration by Ottawa that it is. [Declared officially essential] &... "some rely on lettermail for various reasons but with todays technology its not going to get that status " [officially declared an essential service].
Today I delivered the proceeds of a friend's heirloom to a 90 something woman. She's a capable woman (despite the walker) and she lives alone. She offered to drive to my home and pick it up. As I said, very capable. Her husband passed a few years back. We talked about lettermail. She said she doesn't need or want it. Everything including her pension and all of her bills are rec'd or paid online.
If lettermail didn't exist I guarantee you that Credit cards, passports etc can be delivered by a courier. Your point about northern and isolated communities is the most important consideration. They need to be connected and if they choose to be, better connected than they are now. I would support government funding to make that happen.
A lot of folks here are business people. I retired after running a brick & mortar at the same address for 22 years so I look at numbers. In the 6 years from 2018 to 2023 CP went 3 billion dollars in the red. There are approx 40 million Canadians. Out of them 21 million are either self employed or in the work force. They are on the hook for the loss. To break even up to Dec 31, 2023 they need to make an E transfer to CP in the amount of $142.86. After that CP will continue to lose at amounts above 750 million and our children in the work force will be on the hook.
The same business problem happened to me in 2006. In 1984 the Roland TU12 guitar tuner I sold for $120 left a profit of $35. Operating costs for a retail musical instrument store were 25% of GROSS sales minimum which is $30 of the $120. This left me $5 to pocket. In the 1990's it took 30 minutes to "sell the sizzle" and teach a customer how to use a TU12. Fast forward to 2006..
The digital era had blossomed and the Roland TU12 was long discontinued. Seiko replace it with a digital tuner that sold for $9.95. The Seiko version took 30 minutes to "sell the sizzle" and teach the customer how to use it.
That spelled the demise of many of us with huge investments in brick and mortar. Only an idiot would maintain operating expenses in 2006. That was the year Amazon Prime started.
If lettermail is to continue to break CPs back someone will pay. Door delivery will change to community mail boxes. I've had both. I prefer the community mailbox. Without reiterating the reasons in a previous post aabout why lettermail is damaging Canada Post those that wish to receive lettermail will likely have to pay a fee to stop the drain. That's right. You will need to pay a fee to receive junk mail in your community mailbox that you have to fetch.
Canada Post just delayed my prediction by writing a cheque. There is no business plan to recover. Just wrote a cheque out of the billion and a half Carney just loaned them. (To be paid back in 2025 and 2026 [sarcasm] As a company CP failed back in 2016. Today it's liability dependant on you, me and our young working Canadians to reimburse it $142.86 and God knows what interest is accumulating on the capital injections like the one in January 2025.
Canada Post exists without getting fixed because Canadians look the other way and call it "essential". Essential means paid by tax payers whether they want it or not.
In the meantime the couriers that know how to run a business like Amazon and UPS that is charging an extra $2 per label during the strike bleed you.
Unfortunately governments have a 4 year mandate leaving no incentive to profitize their businesses.
