From my perspective, Canada Post’s PARCEL service is the root cause of its losses, but its PARCEL service is the main reason why Canada Post is so large. Most people know Canada Post’s postal service has little use in the modern era.
I’m not one of those people who say Canada Post should be privatized; I just think it should be smaller. The United States Postal Service(USPS) is perpetually in the negative. However, the structure of the USPS differs from that of Canada Post because it still has to meet the demands of the public, something Canada Post and other Canadian CROWN CORPORATIONS don’t have to do.
CBC, another Crown Corporation, does NOT have to meet the demands of the public; it simply needs to remain under the guidelines of legislation to keep its monopoly status.
This flexibility, for example, is why Canada Post’s PARCEL service doesn’t meet the DEMANDS of Canadian businesses. In America, the USPS doesn’t only meet the demands of businesses; it meets the demands of the overall public because it is part of the political process.
Obviously, this makes USPS inefficient by American standards; however, at least some Americans can enjoy the value USPS brings to their lives. In regards to Canada Post, they offer little UNIQUE value.
If you’re in a business that requires logistics, nothing irritates you more than Canada Post. In America, you’re not a serious business if you rely on Amazon for sales. In Canada, you get a competitive advantage by using Amazon, which charges extremely high fees for its services.
That’s ass-backward to how things should be; the power Canada Post has been granted should make it a POWERHOUSE for small businesses, but no, Canada Post actually benefits countries like CHINA, who, because of economies of scale, can ship things overseas into Canada for far less money than Canadian small businesses.
Canada Post, a CROWN CORPORATION, doesn’t have to work for the PUBLIC; it works for the highest bidder, which is something you’d expect from a PRIVATE courier, yet we’re finding private couriers in Canada even if they can’t offer a better price, offering a far better service.
Because Canada Post is disinterested in meeting the DEMANDS of the Canadian public, multiple different couriers are taking market share from them, and because Amazon, Walmart, and many other large retailers are now having bidding wars for their services, private couriers are now better able offer preferred pricing for small businesses.
Canada Posts PARCEL services in major cities, for example, are NOT cheaper than other couriers, and unless you’re living somewhere rural, you do not see any real benefit to Canada Post; in fact, Canada Posts PARCEL delivery drivers appear to find pleasure in NOT delivering parcels to your front door, which is becoming increasingly OUTDATED, for Canadian online shoppers.
In comparison, other couriers would be OUT OF BUSINESS if they did what Canada Post’s PARCEL delivery drivers ROUTINELY do. Imagine Amazon Prime delivered your packages to Shoppers Drug Mart and left notices on your door telling you you can pick up your parcel a few kilometers down the road during that business’s regular operating hours.
Anyway, those of us in business know how these CROWN Corporations operate; when they suffer losses, they don’t cut costs; they merely RAISE PRICES, which is what I expect Canada Post will do, which brings me to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation(CMHC).
When can Canadians admit that the CMHC has been a COMPLETE FAILURE? I could have sworn the CMHC’s job was to make owning a home MORE AFFORDABLE. At least when Canada Post fails, we see the results; when CMHC fails, nobody sees or says anything. Housing and rental prices are rising because CMHC is BANKRUPT if there’s a housing market crash and Canadians start defaulting on their mortgages because their mortgage is worth more than their home will sell for.
If we’re going to attack inefficient blue-collar government workers, we need to have the same energy for white-collar government workers, who actually do just as much, if not MORE, damage to the Canadian economy.
CMHC is just as inefficiently RUN as Canada Post, but nobody wants to discuss it!
Interesting times ahead!