The Ben Mulroney Show - Bail out Canada Post once again, or do they need to cancel weekday delivery?

Episode Date: May 16, 2025

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Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. Welcome to the Ben Mulrooney Show and we were going to talk Mark Carney and what he's supposed to do with the bloated civil service. We are going to pivot just a little bit same kind of topic, right? What do we do with Canada Post? News just came across my feed that a report came out that says that Canada Post is effectively insolvent or bankrupt and this is happening with a looming strike on the backdrop. You'll remember there was a 32 day strike last year that really, it really upset me

because the Canada Post workers essentially wanted to get job security on the backs of small businesses that depended on them during that very busy fourth quarter of their calendar year, which is where a lot of them make a lot of their money. And they didn't get what they wanted. They were told, go to mediation. Well, now we find out there's still no deal and they could be back on the picket line as early as May 22nd. But if they're insolvent, this is what's being called an existential threat. And there are some options that are being bantied about, about maybe it's time to move to delivery on just

weekends, community mailboxes, really paring down this service. And I want you to give us a call here at the Ben Mulroney Show, and tell us what you think. What do we do with the Canada Post of it all? Do we need daily mail delivery? I say no. I don't know that I've ever received a letter in the mail that needed to be dealt with immediately on that day. Everything I get has a little bit of runway. And I think a good solution is go to once a week delivery

in a lot of places, in most places, in all places. And the government should step in and change the rules as it relates to the payment of bills, giving people a little more of a grace period. So if, I don't know what the, I think it's like two, three weeks with credit cards, make it four weeks, add an extra week, so that when mail gets picked up and delivered,

you have that built- in time already in there. I don't know that that is an impossibility. And this is top of my head. There are people who know the ins and outs of payments far better than I, but if the government wants to step in and mandate a slight change, then mandate a slight change. But it costs too much.

The service is not reliable. And if it's something that matters to us, if Canada Post matters to us, then let's keep it alive in a way that makes fiscal sense. Rob, welcome to the Ben Mulroney show. Welcome to Ben Mulroney show. Rob, sorry about that. And no worries, man. Technical errors. Hey, I was telling your producer like I got a cousin that works for Canada Post so he's not gonna be happy about this but like without Canada Post how am I supposed to film our cycle bin? With all the junk mail and fliers and

and and state ads and and political garbage like what am I gonna do? Well look and you know what you actually bring up a really good point Rob and stick with me here like like the government could could do a whole lot of stuff. I mean, you could make illegal so much of that junk mail, right? So much of it is so much of it is useless, right? Think about how how much of a government's useless to though. Yeah, but but that that could I mean, this this could be an opportunity to reinvent Canada Post as a truly efficient delivery like communication delivery service, they could say, look, no more flyers, no more unsolicited junk mail, that it's just illegal in this country. It's a waste. And if those business like honestly, as we sit around, wondering

about the health of this sector or that sector or this sector or the jobs that could be lost due to disruptions because of tariffs or AI, Does anybody really care about the junk mail sector? Not at all. I don't care about the junk mail. Like the thing with Canada Post and where it does actually, it is actually a necessity is in rural Canada. I've lived in some pretty remote places over the course of my life and it is kind of the only way that they at one point was the only way they could get like a lot of things, right? Like the Sears catalog, for example, right right yeah it was big for because you live in

a remote town there's almost nothing there you're clothing that way or you get household goods that way but now we have a we're in a different world right yeah unfortunately Canada Post hasn't really changed anything in their their business model I mean like if they want to stay viable one day a week yeah plenty yeah I think that's important not really want to stay viable, one day a week. Yeah, plenty. Yeah, it's important not coming to you, Rob, coming to you as email. Yeah, thank you so much for the call. I got a number of people who want to jump in. So I appreciate it. Let's welcome

Mike to the show. Mike, welcome to the Ben Mulroney show. Not a big fan. I like your topic. They could go on strike again. I loved it when they did it a few months ago. It was fantastic. I never got all the junk bail. I was a little upset. I didn't get the flyers because I had nothing to fill the bottom of my bird cage. That's what upset me the most.

The other thing too, Ben, is the taxpayer who pays for all this, who pays for their wages and pays for their pensions. It's a burden on the taxpayers. Unfortunately, like newspapers, we didn't support the newspapers, nor should we. We should not be supporting the relic like Canada Post. It sounds horrible, but it's a harsh truth. Thank you, Ben. I will try to listen to you more. Thank you, Mike. Have a great long weekend. And from one mic, we welcome a second mic to the show. Mike, what do we do at Canada Post?

Well, I agree with some of what you're saying, but I believe that there are still a lot of people that depend on on on mail delivery. Oh, I can see that we depend on as well. I just don't know that we need a debit that comes every day. Well, that's, I'll agree with that. Yeah, yeah. The flyer stuff, a lot of people make their living off those flyers. Well, a lot of people make their livings

off of a lot of stuff, but if it, but no, but Mike, listen, if we're having a discussion on preserving the mail and right now, so much of that mail is useless. It's called junk mail, Mike. So if I've got to pick between preserving Canada Post or preserving the junk mail industry, because so much of the debit that these guys are doing, so much of the, I mean, it's busy work.

It's wasted work by giving people mail they do not want. I don't know that I have to, that's a choice. I'm picking Canada Post. I'm picking a leaner, meaner Canada Post, and I'm saying, sorry, junk mail guys, pivot to something else. Yeah, well there you go. But why should it have to stand on its own again?

We subsidize the CBC, which not many people watch. Why can't we subsidize an international post-op? Oh, no, I'm not saying we shouldn't subsidize it. I'm just saying it should run more efficiently. And one of the ways we can make it run more efficiently is get rid of the junk mail and find a way to deliver mail a little less often. And like, it shouldn't cost what it's costing

and still be insolvent. So anyway, Mike, thank you very much. I'm pretty sure that junk mail provides income. Yes, to some people. So yeah, but again, but it's also, no, but it's time, it's time and it's labor. I mean, just think about the amount of time and work that goes into sorting that stuff and mailing it out

and then delivering all of it. Like lighten the load of those guys. So that service. Yeah, so- How much they pay for that? Yeah, well, I don't know if we're getting, if we as the rest of the country are getting- Well, we should find out.

Yeah, we should. All right, thank you very much, my friend. Let's move on to Don. Don, welcome to the show. Hey, so I used to be an editor of a smaller, twice weekly paper out in southern Alberta and we covered a large rural area south of Calgary and out in the foothills and

we distributed to that area through through Canada Post and it was in some ways I I'm not going to disagree with you on the new though There's gonna be a lot of areas we probably can work on but at the same time It was it was in some parts essential because the correct the counties in that area used us for no public notifications. Yeah. And so but also so I mean the sat in that central was somewhat essential plus we also had a flyer business and I know it's going to say junk but I mean that was that was what helped keep our business running in a difficult industry was those flyers. But, and I'm not disputing that. What I'm just, I'm just asking the question,

is the cost of dealing with that debit of junk mail, is that, is the cost of it greater than the value that's being driven into Canada Post? And just because I say once a week delivery doesn't mean it has to be once a week everywhere. There's certain parts of the country where maybe they do keep it once every day. Anyway, once a day.

But thank you, Don. I've got time for one more. Mike, welcome to the show. You got about 30 seconds, my friend. Hey, Ben, thanks for taking my call. My dad came out of the Second World War and started working at Canada Post and had a long career there.

He always worked for the king or the queen. In the 70s, that was all disrupted when the Canada Post became a crown corporation. Before that, you couldn't move stuff unless you're moving your own product. Yeah. Well, I got to run, my friend. I got to run.

Have a happy long weekend. And thanks again for joining us on the Ben Mulroney Show. ["The Daily Show Theme"] To celebrate the Days of Our Lives 60th anniversary, W Network and Stack TV invite you to enter for a chance to win the ultimate fan experience. By watching new episodes of Days of Our Lives, you and a guest could win a three-night stay in Los Angeles,

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