The fundamental weakness of Crown corporations is that they do not have to compete in the real world.
That should be their strength, of course. But that's hard to reconcile when, for instance, B.C. Ferries increases prices to the point that passenger-use declines and then uses revenue figures to justify service cuts.
Canada Post, in its monopolistic wisdom, has taken the opposite tack. In an announcement suspiciously timed to the day after Parliament began its Christmas break, the postal corp told Canadians Wednesday that declining demand requires higher - much higher - prices. For good measure they are planning less service too.
Perhaps the planners, we use the term generously, figure Canadians are inured to declining mail service: the end of Saturday deliveries, next-day delivery becoming theday-after-next delivery, the demise of rural route delivery. After all, we have accepted less while paying more for so many years, why wouldn't we continue to do the same?
Nobody seems to care that Canada Post enjoys the protection of legislation that prevents any courier company or rival service from delivering a letter for less than three times the cost of a stamp - that will cost $1 at the end of March.
Despite this level of protection, Canada Post was on track to lose $243 million this year, until it sold its downtown Vancouver sorting plant. The Conference Board of Canada put Canada Post's projected losses by 2020 at $1 billion a year.
With this level of demonstrated incompetence, taxpayers should question whether the plan to extinguish all home deliveries within three years will stem the bleeding. In the Internet age, might it cost less to just privatize mail delivery?
