@reallynicestamps wrote:
Forty to 50 years ago?
Circa 1975 was when the PO was in a total mess, which was partly cultural as the workers were Boomers and management was made up of WWII officers with an entirely different mindset.
Those who think the PO is racked by labour troubles are reflecting those days.
It interested me a couple of years ago when a Canada Post senior executive mused to the G&M Report on Business that Canada Post was seeing a return to their situation in the early 20th century when the bulk of their business was parcel delivery. Letters and bills were a blip in the mid to latter part of the century, apparently.
It would be useful for those who want to privatize the Post Office, a crown corporation which is usually profitable, to actually look at the charges of the many private companies who work in Canada.
Although they pay their workers less and deliver only to the most profitable routes (Old Crow? Nah. Burnstown? Not a chance. Tofino? Forget it.) their charges are higher for similar services.
And since most are foreign owned, their profits do not stay in Canada.
Yeah, the post office was a mess then too, but there was less at stake from an economic point of view than there is now (aside from the terrified seniors worried about their cheques).
I do recall the discussion we had about early 20th C. postal use. It's quite true, between the late 1890's and the mid 1920's a staggering amount of mail-order goods were handled by postal systems, stuff of every conceivable shape, size, and weight. At that time the mail order/department store companies were entirely dependent upon the post office and the rail services. In later decades many (like Eaton's) had fleets of their own delivery trucks. I fondly remember as a child in Toronto the sight of those familiar burgundy trucks buzzing up and down suburban streets -- are they bringing my parcel?!
I'm not one who thinks privatization is a good idea either. It does tend to squelch wages, and a completely privatized postal system will serve the needs that are most profitable, not the needs that are most equitable for a country like ours.
We have an odd case, with our vast distances and tiny population. Yet I think there are some things (like the post office) that help to hold us together as a country in more than merely practical terms. So I personally think it's worth keeping out of private hands.
The Crown Corporation was not a bad idea at the time it was introduced, but the economic landscape has changed so much, and we now have a large population of small businesses almost completely dependent upon uninterrupted delivery service. Yes, there are a lot of lucky people living in the big cities close enough to the U.S. border to use Chit Chats and its ilk during postal strikes, but I expect there are just as many of us out here in the boonies. Maybe the federal government should do a careful survey of how many people are supplementing family income (or seniors avoiding having to apply for G.A.I.N) by running their small businesses from home using Canada Post, and then do a cost/benefit analysis of subsidizing Canada Post in some way. Oh yes, and by the way, we pay taxes on that business income too.
In fact, the internet and Canada Post together are the only things that make earning at least a partial living from Cornerbrook to Cranbrook possible. Fortunately the internet doesn't go on strike (not yet at least).
