I mean ok, like point taken, and it’s a good one. But what’s the amount of money that should be spent on something that can be privatized without affecting public welfare vs how much should be allocated to stuff like health care, pharmacare, education, etc.? Stuff that has more of an effect on public welfare.
Stop and take an honest look at what you get in the mail. If you are like me, it’s 98% junk and unsolicited mail, and 2% parcels, which are easily taken care of by the private sector. I mean once a year my grandma sends me cards or whatever, but why should we be burning 100’s of millions for this. Personally I’d way rather than funding get allocated to health care or education.
I get that people also lose jobs here though, and that legit sucks.
What stops private corporations from jacking up rates and discontinuing service to underserved areas without pressure from Canada Post?
That’s right, fuck all. The problem with this attitude is that because YOU don’t use Canada Post you assume nobody else does. Yes, traditional mail is not a big thing anymore. But what Canada Post does is fundamentally just delivery, and they could easily restructure around that.
Without it, you just cede another piece of critical infrastructure to American private companies. Need a package sent to a northern or rural area? Be prepared to pay the one American company that bothered to set up a route there astronomical prices in the name of profit.
Sending things to each other, from small businesses and across all areas in Canada should be a thing we offer and don’t just let Americans take over and kill unprofitable routes. It’s a great use of tax dollars, and just because it doesn’t matter to you doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter a whole lot to the person in Iqaluit who gets their cancer drugs that way.
So would you prioritize this over better cancer care in remote communities for example? Or an ability to get drugs cheaply? Because we are in the B range here, think about reallocating that money. Canada post can’t run itself effectively, without burning mass amounts of cash. That much has been proven. They are making claims that they are effectively insolvent.
I’ve lived in an nothern remote community before, I know what it’s like, very intimately. But there was a difference there, no one was getting cancer drugs through Canada Post, as they didn’t have the infrastructure. It was cheaper to use Canada Post, sure, but it was also weeks out. If you needed stuff faster, it had a cost, because it literally had a pretty big cost to get there. The remote areas pay a heavy price for shopping and cargo, end of sentence. Now should this cost be subsidized? I could argue yes or no, both sides. But this isn’t what is burning the amounts of money that they are, because Canada Post doesn’t focus a lot of resources up there either.
You need to really dig into the books to see where the cash is going, but I think it would cause pause for most. There’s been a lot of failed projects over the years, they tried to basically create their own Amazon like marketplace for example, and they burned a tremendous amount of capital doing so. That shouldn’t have ever been allowed to happen. They run a lot of mind numbing hours and resources in communities where it’s clearly going to waste, but are leaving other communities largely in the lurch, and where such human capital allocations would be better served.
Am I suggesting the elimination of mail service? Not necessarily. Does it need to come every day though? Should there be more boxes and centralized pickup spots, to realize some savings? Why are they in the parcel business, where they are literally competing with…themselves? (Canada post has an almost whole ownership of Purolator - which is profitable). So if they want to do parcels, why not sell that ownership off and reallocate that capital? Or maybe leave the parcels for Purolator, and extend some price controls.
There’s a lot that needs examined in this crown corp, and I for one am not really a fan of them just continuing to throw capital at it, where they have shown time and time again they can burn through it at a stupid fast rate, on some contra-intuitive projects.
The fact of the matter is, their junk mail production is the only thing keeping the lights on. That’s not an effective use of Canadian taxpayer capital. So how do we fix this then? Does it really make me such a bad person to question this?
I receive a lot of parcels via Canada Post. Probably more than via any other carrier. Canada Post is almost always the cheapest shipping available and often by significant margin. Cost of shipping will increase if it’s privatized. That means higher costs for many small businesses who now reach all of Canada. That means fewer sales, less money in local communities, more reliance on Amazon and Walmart, and more money leaving our communities, making us poorer. A cheap, national carrier is an economic enabler infrastructure for Canadians. I haven’t looked at analyses but I’m guessing it would be a net contributor in terms of welfare. Similar to high-speed rail.
It’s mind numbing how no one is ever willing to look at some facts here. The way this crown corp has been run, and the decisions they have made (and the numerous failed projects they have burned massive amounts of cash on), I don’t understand why this can never be questioned…
You can request that you not receive unaddressed mail, it’s quite nice not having a mailbox stuffed with garbage.
Just because you may not use a postal service much doesn’t mean others don’t. It’s really the only option for those without mobile devices, computers, or internet access. Dismantling or privatizing the postal service would have a significant negative impact on seniors, elderly, and rural and remote communities.
We could easily afford a special service for those people without any other options without having to deliver mail 5 times a day to millions of people who do not need it. Those people you’re talking about are less than 10% of the population.
It’s like if we had a massive program to provide every single Canadian with their own service dog instead of just the people who want service dogs.
They are losing hundreds of millions a year though. That money could go a long way in other areas.
I’m not saying no mail, but maybe let’s think of solutions. Do I need every day delivery? Do we need post offices. I ain’t even suggesting it be profitable, but theres an extreme cash burn going on here. A lot of their services can be done by private companies pretty effectively (and I’m not a huge privatization guy). Hell they even own one (Purolator), so why the fuck are they also still messing around in the parcel world?
That’s not accurate at all. You can’t just burn billions on billions on a public service then, without cuts somewhere else. You can’t equate mail to stuff like a military and health care, it’s not the same. Protection and basic human care for subsistence isn’t equitable to being able to mail a letter to someone, or to send someone junk mail.
I mean ok, like point taken, and it’s a good one. But what’s the amount of money that should be spent on something that can be privatized without affecting public welfare vs how much should be allocated to stuff like health care, pharmacare, education, etc.? Stuff that has more of an effect on public welfare.
Stop and take an honest look at what you get in the mail. If you are like me, it’s 98% junk and unsolicited mail, and 2% parcels, which are easily taken care of by the private sector. I mean once a year my grandma sends me cards or whatever, but why should we be burning 100’s of millions for this. Personally I’d way rather than funding get allocated to health care or education.
I get that people also lose jobs here though, and that legit sucks.
What stops private corporations from jacking up rates and discontinuing service to underserved areas without pressure from Canada Post?
That’s right, fuck all. The problem with this attitude is that because YOU don’t use Canada Post you assume nobody else does. Yes, traditional mail is not a big thing anymore. But what Canada Post does is fundamentally just delivery, and they could easily restructure around that.
Without it, you just cede another piece of critical infrastructure to American private companies. Need a package sent to a northern or rural area? Be prepared to pay the one American company that bothered to set up a route there astronomical prices in the name of profit.
Sending things to each other, from small businesses and across all areas in Canada should be a thing we offer and don’t just let Americans take over and kill unprofitable routes. It’s a great use of tax dollars, and just because it doesn’t matter to you doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter a whole lot to the person in Iqaluit who gets their cancer drugs that way.
So would you prioritize this over better cancer care in remote communities for example? Or an ability to get drugs cheaply? Because we are in the B range here, think about reallocating that money. Canada post can’t run itself effectively, without burning mass amounts of cash. That much has been proven. They are making claims that they are effectively insolvent.
I’ve lived in an nothern remote community before, I know what it’s like, very intimately. But there was a difference there, no one was getting cancer drugs through Canada Post, as they didn’t have the infrastructure. It was cheaper to use Canada Post, sure, but it was also weeks out. If you needed stuff faster, it had a cost, because it literally had a pretty big cost to get there. The remote areas pay a heavy price for shopping and cargo, end of sentence. Now should this cost be subsidized? I could argue yes or no, both sides. But this isn’t what is burning the amounts of money that they are, because Canada Post doesn’t focus a lot of resources up there either.
You need to really dig into the books to see where the cash is going, but I think it would cause pause for most. There’s been a lot of failed projects over the years, they tried to basically create their own Amazon like marketplace for example, and they burned a tremendous amount of capital doing so. That shouldn’t have ever been allowed to happen. They run a lot of mind numbing hours and resources in communities where it’s clearly going to waste, but are leaving other communities largely in the lurch, and where such human capital allocations would be better served.
Am I suggesting the elimination of mail service? Not necessarily. Does it need to come every day though? Should there be more boxes and centralized pickup spots, to realize some savings? Why are they in the parcel business, where they are literally competing with…themselves? (Canada post has an almost whole ownership of Purolator - which is profitable). So if they want to do parcels, why not sell that ownership off and reallocate that capital? Or maybe leave the parcels for Purolator, and extend some price controls.
There’s a lot that needs examined in this crown corp, and I for one am not really a fan of them just continuing to throw capital at it, where they have shown time and time again they can burn through it at a stupid fast rate, on some contra-intuitive projects.
The fact of the matter is, their junk mail production is the only thing keeping the lights on. That’s not an effective use of Canadian taxpayer capital. So how do we fix this then? Does it really make me such a bad person to question this?
I receive a lot of parcels via Canada Post. Probably more than via any other carrier. Canada Post is almost always the cheapest shipping available and often by significant margin. Cost of shipping will increase if it’s privatized. That means higher costs for many small businesses who now reach all of Canada. That means fewer sales, less money in local communities, more reliance on Amazon and Walmart, and more money leaving our communities, making us poorer. A cheap, national carrier is an economic enabler infrastructure for Canadians. I haven’t looked at analyses but I’m guessing it would be a net contributor in terms of welfare. Similar to high-speed rail.
Canada Post already has a package delivery service. They own 91% of Purolator which is highly profitable.
It’s mind numbing how no one is ever willing to look at some facts here. The way this crown corp has been run, and the decisions they have made (and the numerous failed projects they have burned massive amounts of cash on), I don’t understand why this can never be questioned…
You can request that you not receive unaddressed mail, it’s quite nice not having a mailbox stuffed with garbage.
Just because you may not use a postal service much doesn’t mean others don’t. It’s really the only option for those without mobile devices, computers, or internet access. Dismantling or privatizing the postal service would have a significant negative impact on seniors, elderly, and rural and remote communities.
We could easily afford a special service for those people without any other options without having to deliver mail 5 times a day to millions of people who do not need it. Those people you’re talking about are less than 10% of the population.
It’s like if we had a massive program to provide every single Canadian with their own service dog instead of just the people who want service dogs.
They are losing hundreds of millions a year though. That money could go a long way in other areas.
I’m not saying no mail, but maybe let’s think of solutions. Do I need every day delivery? Do we need post offices. I ain’t even suggesting it be profitable, but theres an extreme cash burn going on here. A lot of their services can be done by private companies pretty effectively (and I’m not a huge privatization guy). Hell they even own one (Purolator), so why the fuck are they also still messing around in the parcel world?
They aren’t losing anything, just as the military doesn’t lose money, nor the healthcare system. It is a public service.
That’s not accurate at all. You can’t just burn billions on billions on a public service then, without cuts somewhere else. You can’t equate mail to stuff like a military and health care, it’s not the same. Protection and basic human care for subsistence isn’t equitable to being able to mail a letter to someone, or to send someone junk mail.