At Issue - Liberal plan to save Canada Post sparks backlash

Episode Date: September 26, 2025

At Issue this week: Canada Post workers go back on strike after the Liberals unveil a plan to save it from its ‘existential crisis.’ The Conservatives call for the public safety minister to be fired over leaked gun buyback comments. And Prime Minister Mark Carney tries to find more trade allies. Rosemary Barton hosts Chantal Hébert, Andrew Coyne and Althia Raj.

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Go to Building Better Schools.ca. A message from the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario. This is a CBC podcast. Hey there, I'm Rosemary Barton this week on At Issue, the podcast edition for Thursday, September 25th. There are limits to our capacity to bail out Canada Posts year after year, and we need to, you know, it needs to show a path to financial viability. It's happening in real time, but it will be soon.

This week, we're asking what's to be made of the union's decision to strike, Can a change to mail delivery be a political headache for the government? Plus, how much does the Prime Minister support his public safety minister and the gun buyback program? So what's to be made of the union's decision to strike right across the country? Can a change to mail delivery be a political headache? I'm Rosemary Barton. Here to break it all down. Chantilly Bear, Andrew Coyne, Altheiraj.

Good to see everyone. I was chatting before we started that I have been around long enough to remember a decade ago when this was a political headache. the Justin Trudeau liberals ran on stopping what is now sort of in the offing from happening. So it's definitely an issue, Chantelle. What do you make of both the government's decision to follow these recommendations to scale back delivery in a dramatic way and then I guess the union's reaction? Okay, it's kind of groundhog day in the sense of the government's announcement because what prompted Denis Godire, who was then the mayor of Montreal, to do what he did,

It was an announcement by the Conservatives a decade ago that they would do basically what has been announced today. So if you want to look at it from this angle, we've just wasted a decade of doing something that may have been inevitable. As for the decision to strike, I guess it's a choice the government made to make this announcement as negotiations are still ongoing over a labor contract between the postal. workers and Canada Post, but they are in a strike position. It seems to have blindsided them. I wasn't there, so I don't know. But I am not surprised that that's the reaction.

And to your basic question, can changes to Canada Post bring political headaches to a government? Yes, we will get to test again, possibly. The government's preferred way of going to the Labor Relations Board to end the work stoppage. Denny Coderre, for people who don't remember, took a jackhammer to a community mailbox. I think it was back in 2014 as a response to this. And it became, to Chautil Point, an election issue. I mean, we're 10 years later, Andrew, and Canada Post continues to bleed a lot of money. A billion dollars last year, a billion and a half, I think, for this year.

So, I mean, there are questions about how viable this is. Yeah, I mean, listening to management labor, what's that old line about two bald men fighting over a comb? You know, that the union seems to think that the purpose of Canada Post is to provide them with things to do. And regardless of what is the cost to the taxpayer or the cost to the consumer. So the losses mount and the union is just in this kind of never, never land where nothing has happened. Management seems to think that Canada Post's purpose is to provide less and less service at higher and higher prices year after year after year, which is admittedly the logic of all monopolists. And the government seems to agree with the both.

They all seem to think the purpose of this whole exercise is to fix Canada Post, to try to limit its losses, to keep it as a viable corporation. It seems to me what we ought to be trying to fix is Postal service, whether or not that involves Canada Post. I mean, we're now going to go to a position where nobody in this country is going to have home delivery. Could somebody else provide postal service in their place? No, they're not. They're not allowed to by a statutory monopoly.

Now, you could argue about the validity of that in the past, but we're now in the absurd position, we're going to keep enforcing a statutory monopoly for Canada Post on a service it refuses to provide. I think at some point, the absurdity of that situation has to kick through, and we should be doing what countries across Europe have done, which is to open postal service to free and open competition. There's just no reason anymore to preserve this outdated monopoly,

particularly when the product of it is now an absurdly, again, a monopolist that's going broke. the minister certainly talking to David Cochran tonight was not contemplating any of those things believe Canada Post remains important and fundamental to the country, etc. But I take your point, Althea. I didn't see Joe Light Brown's interview on CBC

but I did watch his press conference and I thought he actually did a pretty good job of saying, listen, if you want Canada Post to remain a Crown Corporation and the government would like to see it continue that way, it has to make big, difficult changes. And frankly, so far, everything it announced were things that William Kaplan prescribed, recommended in the report in the summer, which are things that have long been

recommended. And so none of this should have come, frankly, as a surprise to the union. And I fear that the backlash that this has generated with now, you know, every time there's a strike, you get more and more bills that say, oh, we're going to, you know, because of the uncertainty of this situation, we're going to send you bills by email now, and we're not using Canada Post anymore. And so they're kind of hurting their cause. And if we want to go the way of royal mail in the UK to be privatized and I think owned by

some Czech billionaire or Austria or the Netherlands or Germany, then I think this is a fast way to get there. But Mr. Kaplan, in his report, much like the government. government said today, like, it is completely financially unsustainable. And I think Canadians can see that. Whether the Trudeau government should have done, you know, gone ahead with the Harper Plan and more community billbox, maybe. But it's not the only reason they're in this mess. They're in this mess because of their collective agreement basically harms them in that they can't pivot in a way and they've lost parcel, very lucrative contracts. Or I shouldn't say,

very lucrative arm of the business to third-party companies that can be more nimble. And if they could do more part-time work, then, you know, that's another recommendation in the Kaplan Report. Then maybe they would be able to be more financially viable. But I think, faced with these facts, you know, you can't have a Crown Corporation losing a billion dollars a year. No. And Chattell, you know, I don't know what the outrage will be for Canadians. I'm not sure, you know, a decade later, whether it will have the same political impact that it did. But for the government to be placed in this position with a labor dispute, again, because of a decision that it is pushing forward on Canada Post,

that is problematic for the government politically. Possibly, but it's also problematic, I'm guessing, for the government to allow a negotiated settlement to come true on terms that would not work for its plans to deal with Canada Post. Now, in normal business terms, we would have been presented with a business plan today and a sense that doing all this will make it, if not profitable, at least a break-even operation. Nothing like that happens.

And I think that's the fatal flaw in the government's plan. that we know there will be less service. And by the way, I live in downtown Montreal. Amazon has found a place to have boxes where you can go get your packages. So it's not impossible to get mail, not at your door. But the problem that is going to come about is two things. One, the political alignment, the Black and the NDP are going to oppose that. so it's going to rest on the conservatives logic would suggest that it was their solution and they

would back it if that's the case then that basically means that canada's two major parties the only two parties that stand a chance that governing in the near future agree that Canada post will stop home delivery i'm not sure where that leaves the union 30 seconds or so do you enter this is i think going to be the 13th national postal strike in several decades every time they do it, they lose more market share. They're already essentially irrelevant in the parcel delivery, which is the competitive side of the business. The only thing they've got left is the letter mail.

They're driving themselves out of business that, even though they have a monopoly on it. It's obsolete. It's not because letter mail is obsolete. It's flourishing in other countries, much more so than it is here. It's that the postal service as an organizational structure is obsolete. Quick last word to you, Lofia.

I think the political takeaway from this is there's very little chance that we're going to have an election in November because this is going to be unpopular on many sides that the liberals are aware of, whether that's from the resident side or on the union labor side, which is kind of a problem that they've been trying to mend since they miscalculated on the Air Canada strike. Okay, we're going to leave this part there. Thank you all. That was a good conversation. When we come back, we'll talk about the public safety ministers' leaked comments around the gun buyback program. How is the Prime Minister defending the Minister and the program itself? That's next.

What the Minister of Public Safety is doing is doing it right. He's correcting an inefficient system. So how strong is the Prime Minister's support for the program and his minister? Can the Liberals weather these first calls, I think maybe the first calls for a minister's resignation? Here to break it down, Chantal, Andrew, and I'll. Althea. Let's start with you on this. Certainly the Minister of Public Safety didn't look great given this conversation that he had with a tenant where he seemed to express some skepticism about the program or the way it was being implemented. And the conservatives who don't like the program

to begin with have really, you know, latched on to that. I'm not sure what the question is in there, but yes, all that is true. So the star got about a 20-minute conversation. between Gary and this Hungary and his tenant, his longtime tenant that he knew really well. And, you know, MPs often try to extract themselves from difficult conversations with their constituents by telling them sometimes things that they want to hear. But in this case, you know, he tells his constituents, well, if I had, you know, to start this program from scratch, I wouldn't have done it this way. He jokes with them that he might bail him out. At one point, He tells them that, you know, you can relax, like the police,

the municipal police services don't have the resources to enact this law. Basically, at the moment, there's an amnesty for gun owners who have prohibited weapons. But as of October 31st, that amnesty will be lifted unless the government extends it. And you could be charged. It will be a criminal code offense to have these guns and not have registered them with the government or send them back to get money back. whatever the process is disabled for these gun owners.

How long can the prime minister hold on? PMO seems to have decided that they believe in backing their minister at the moment. The longer the calls go on, the more difficult that becomes. But if Mark Carney decides to

shuffle or remove Mr. Ernest Hungary from his cabinet post, he basically tells the conservatives what they need to do to go after a cabinet minister. And so I think the government is very hesitant to go in that direction. And he's going to try to hang on as long as possible. There is also going to be a cabinet shuffle in the months ahead.

And so hopefully, I think, the government is hoping that it can do the musical chairs around that time. It's a policy that is inherited from the Trudeau liberals, Chantal, but it's obviously a policy that is also important to get back, which is where the party's base is right now, the largest part of its caucus. So all those things are important. It's also important in terms of a sort of a value positioning against the conservatives as well. I think it's important to regions of the country, not just Quebec, where there have been these episodes where people died as a result of wild sprees by people who somehow lost their mental balance or were out for revenge for something.

So I do believe there is a market for gun control measures. That being said, the deadline on this has been extended twice. And at some point, the government has to decide. A pilot project in Cape Breton does not sound like a vote of confidence in the buy-back program. And I agree with Althea. There is no way that Mark Carney is going to fire a minister this week. That doesn't mean he won't fire a minister when he does a real shuffle in a few months. Yeah.

Andrew? There's an old line of Michael Kinsley's that a gaff is when a politician tells the truth. I think there are real questions around the efficacy and efficiency of this program. The minister was unfortunate enough to have confessed that to a constituent. But it's problematic since the job of a minister is not so much these days to set policy as to sell them. And if you're selling them by basically saying that I don't believe in them, That's obviously a terrible problem for him. But he was in a lot of trouble before this, of course, let's recall.

Earlier this year, he was asked basic questions about how gun regulations work and couldn't answer them in Parliament. He had the whole business where he had to recuse himself as the public safety minister from dealing with a couple of Tamil terrorist organizations. That was even before it was discovered that he'd written letters on behalf of an individual who was suspected, accused of being a terrorist. So he's already got loaded down with perception, if not reality problems, as the Minister of Public Safety. I agree with my colleagues that there's no longer the practice these days to dump a minister,

but he will be shuffled, I would bet money, the first opportunity. Is it even more damaging, Althea, for both the minister and the liberals, because the conservatives are so strongly against this? And a lot of their base obviously disagrees with the policy. well? Well, it's a gift to the Conservatives because it allows them to fundraise on the issue, and this is, guns has been traditionally, a very lucrative fundraising attempt for the Conservatives. What struck me this week was how quickly they actually moved off of demanding he be fired. So on Tuesday, there were 31 questions. I think they used all of their question slots to demand that he be fired.

And then when the Prime Minister was in the House on Wednesday, the leader around started off asking that he be fired. than they moved on to food prices. And so I wondered if it's helping them on the fundraising front, but maybe it's not something that is helping them grow their vote with the people whose vote they do need it to grow. And that perhaps is why the questions in French are not about the gun buyback program. They're about other aspects of the public safety file. So I think that's quite telling.

Last word to you. Yeah, but if you look at what's been happening, in the U.S. with guns and people getting murdered or shot at twice over two weeks, high profile both times for different reasons. You kind of think that maybe it's not the best time to be defending the fact that assault rifles would still be in the hands of people. And yes, I understand the difference between a hunting rifle and an assault rifle. But at this point, I still think the government is trying to have it both ways. Having a pilot project doesn't sound to me like a committed government to a policy.

Well, I think they need to do the pilot project to find out what the kinks are before they roll it out. Like, I think that's wise. The program has already rolled out to businesses. I think it's important to flag that, and the money has already been booked. So to go against an election promise that they've made so many times would be quite a big bold move. They also have recruited as a star candidate, a survivor from Polytechnic. I don't really think you want her to quit. We're going to take a short break.

When we come back, we'll talk about the Prime Minister's meetings with world leaders at the UN and Canada's changing role in the world. That's next. To diversify our trade and security relationships, I met with leaders from Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America, and the Caribbean, seeking new export markets and new opportunities for Canadians. Prime Minister is yet on yet another costly and useless photo op tour. How significant are some of these changes?

What does it tell us about Prime Minister Carney's view of Canada's role in the world? Let's bring everyone back, Chantal, Andrew, Elthia. Obviously, Andrew, the biggest shift over this week was Canada's position on recognizing the state of Palestine. But a lot of it was also about aligning with other countries. like France, like the UK, the Prime Minister off to the UK tonight. I wonder what you make of the sort of, if there's a bigger picture piece here in terms of foreign policy. Well, I think it's silly to say that, you know, you should stay home, you shouldn't be making foreign trips. At the same time, I don't think we should have huge expectations for how much can be accomplished,

certainly in the short run. We are in a real pickle, frankly, as a country. Our country that we've counted upon to be our main protector historically cannot necessarily be counted on to do that at a time when the natural barriers that protected our own territory are no longer the barriers they once were. The coal, the oceans are no longer the type of barriers they once were. So we have a real question about how we're going to defend that territory.

Point one. Point two, we've been free-riding on the rest of NATO for decades. We can no longer do that. We can no longer do that in part because we really need to be much closer to all the other countries in NATO. NATO has its own existential question of can it really count on the United States to be a member anymore, to be a member in good standing that would actually live up to its Article 5 obligations. So something is going to be coming out of that that we obviously have to be a big part of, and that's going to mean spending a lot more money, et cetera.

We've been trying to diversify our trade away from the Americans for decades. We have an urgent need to do so now, but prospects of that, are slim. The prime minister should certainly do whatever he can to strike free trade treaties with other countries. I would include among whatever he can slaughtering whatever sacred cows he needs to do in Canada to seal those deals and we're a long way from that.

So this kind of diplomacy is absolutely part of that but how much he's going to be able to accomplish in the short term I think we should be very skeptical of. Chantal? Well, if Pierre-Poliev had been elected prime minister, I think it would have been part of his duty to get on some kind of a get-acquainted tour, especially in the current context, the one that Andrew totally described. So the notion that there is no value to any of this, that there is no value to having a face-to-face meeting in Mexico or partner in free trade with the United States, that the conservatives were the one who insisted after Brexit that we should be very proactive on having more trade of a trade relationship with the UK.

That's precisely where the prime minister is going. I find that very, well, I don't know how to describe it. Adolescent as a criticism to say, look, he's not coming back with deals, so he should be staying home. And I'm not sure with pressing issue. Mark Carney is not attending to. Althea, that's where to you. I don't disagree with that framing

because I can't imagine that Pierre Paulyev would not have gone to the UN General Assembly, at least his very first one. I mean, it's a very short trip to New York, like what, 90 minutes from Ottawa, and you meet all the world leaders in one spot. Why would you not do that? But at the same time, I do think it starts to sow doubts

in Canadians' minds about, well, Mark Carney seems to be in Europe a lot or Mark Carney seems to be traveling around the world a lot and what is he delivering from all that travel? And yes, I don't think Canadians, most Canadians expect him to have delivered something at this very moment. But in a year from now,

if he's still traveling at the same pace that he's traveling and nothing has tangently emerged, then I think that criticism starts to stick. And the considers are very good at identifying like a little emotional message and then drilling on it in the weeks and months to come. So I don't think that's a bad strategy.

What struck me from the Prime Minister's travel this week, though, is the tone and the framing. It's not at all. Justin Trudeau, 2015. We're not talking about Canada's back. We're not talking about being Boy Scouts to the world and talking about multilateralism and peacekeeping. We're talking about economic deals and trade deals.

And his focus is very, I mean, aside from the Indonesian president's visit, It's a very European centric, which is clearly where he also gravitates. So that I thought was noticeable. Lots about security, too. Quick last word to you, Chantel. Well, Ukraine is not a European trip in the European sense of the world. And we saw the prime minister on the Ukraine front. Meeting with the prime minister of China is not terribly European centric either,

nor is trying to figure out how to help 80. at this juncture when it's undergoing a terrible crisis. So I find it more diversified than saying he's flying off to London where his favorite restaurants maybe. Okay. Well, he's just been there a lot. And the China, maybe we'll talk more about the China relationship later, but I think that's also very important.

He's going to a rugby game in London. I mean, Canada's playing, but yeah, okay, we'll leave it there. Thank you all. That's at issue for this week. What do you think of Mark Carney's whirlwind? tour of grips and grins with world leaders, do they matter to you? Let us know. You can send us an email at ask.cbc.ca. You can catch me on Rosemary Barton Live Sundays at 10 a.m. Eastern. We will be back here next week. Thank you for listening.