The Political Physicist

As you may know, Canada Post recently announced that they will be making some changes. Two in particular are of note: a price increase on stamps and the phasing out of door-to-door delivery in urban areas. The latter measure will allow the elimination of about 8000 jobs. However, thanks to the strength of the postal workers’ union, no one will actually be fired; rather, the workforce reductions will be achieved by attrition.

Predictably, the left has had a conniption over all of this. A typical example can be found here. In particular, they have denounced the elimination of door-to-door delivery. Given my politics, you may be expecting a similar reaction here. But there you would be wrong. Many parts of Canada already use the community mailboxes which will become the norm over the next few years. It so happens that I grew up in one such area. It was a daily routine to either walk and get the mail or to swing by the mailbox when we were driving somewhere. In the case of the latter, the community mailbox arrangement took at most an extra two minutes out of our day. In the case of the former, it forced us to get a bit of fresh air and exercise. Contrary to what many claim, the scheme is not particularly inconvenient* and certainly is not going to cause the destruction of Canada Post.

Actually, if anything the opposite is true. Sometimes people will talk about ending Canada Post’s monopoly and introducing competition into mail delivery. I tend to be suspicious of such proposals, but if the proper regulations were in place then I find it hard to actually justify the government monopoly on door-to-door daily mail delivery. Community mail boxes, however, make this much more difficult in my opinion. Do we really want to allow every upstart mail-delivery company to have the keys to everyone’s mailboxes? I think that would be rather hard to justify (especially given that the mailboxes are government property) and could thus potentially reinforce Canada Post’s monopoly status. It obviously would be no protection against privatization, but in the current political climate I don’t know what can be.

To me, the far more concerning element of the reforms is the increase in the price of postage. Again, I doubt that this will spell the end of a public post office, but it is nonetheless a significant increase. Prices will be going up by 22 cents when buying stamps in packs and by 37 cents when buying individually (although most people protesting the changes are only bothering to mention the higher of these two figures). Given that Canada Post’s delivery times are, let’s face it, less than impressive, cheapness is one of the few things it has going for it. It perplexes me that the prices increases seem to be of secondary concern to those on the left.

Mind you, this whole thing perplexes me to some extent. As I mentioned earlier, community mailboxes are not exactly new; large parts of Canada have been using them for years. If they are such a terrible idea, why the hell are we only hearing it now? Are the people who intend to protest the post office changes going to push for the elimination of all community mailboxes and the restoration of universal door-to-door delivery? Somehow I doubt it. And which of the other cost-saving proposals would they endorse? Reducing delivery to three days a week seems like a much worse option to me. As does closing post offices, which are a fantastically valuable piece of infrastructure which have the potential to perform many useful functions. I don’t much like the idea of wage reductions or restraint and, in any case, that would be difficult given the strength of the postal union (although knowing Harper he might just legislate it through). Prices increases certainly aren’t ideal, as I’ve already said. Community mailboxes seem like a pretty reasonable solution, given that.

Is it ideal? Not really. There’s no denying that door-to-door delivery is more convenient. And, even if the job reductions are done by attrition, I’m not thrilled with a reduction in the size of the public sector. It’s yet another reduction in the role played in the economy by Crown corporations, further removing from people’s consciousness the idea of public enterprise performing a useful function. (Particularly disturbing is that the government has appointed a CEO of Canada Post who came from a company that operates privatized post offices.) What’s more, there are alternatives to the reduction in service, other sources of revenue which Canada Post could pursue. Post offices could take over some of the functions of Service Canada, for example. It would be far more convenient for people, considering there are many more post offices than Service Canada bureaus.

But far more interesting is the potential for Canada Post to offer banking services, as described in this Toronto Star article. This isn’t nearly as strange an idea as it seems, as postal banks are common in Europe and other parts of the world. In fact, Britain’s old Gyro Bank—the name of their postal bank— was (prior to its privatization in the ‘80s) possibly the single most successful example of public enterprise, introducing many innovations and scaring the private banking sector into shaping up its act. A similar scheme in Canada would be an excellent idea even on its own merit. It could likely offer Canadians superior levels of service (certainly many more branches) than existing banks currently provide and could be used to invest in socially useful projects. What’s more, it would almost certainly provide Canada Post with enough revenue to make the current service reductions unnecessary. Perhaps it would be enough to pay for universal door-to-door delivery (although I honestly have no idea about that).

So there’s no doubt that there are alternatives to the service reductions at Canada Post. Ones that would promote socialist ideals such as public ownership. But I honestly don’t see these service reductions as leading to the destruction or privatization of Canada Post. They will, at worst, be a minor inconvenience for Canadians. Let’s try to keep things in perspective.

*I should note here that the changes will more troublesome for seniors. Perhaps there could be a compromise made where you get door-to-door delivery if you are over a certain age? But in any case, most seniors who live in their own houses are fairly spry.