Editor:
I guess the legislature has put a halt on the postal strike, although I suspect the battle is not over.
Most real businesses reward employees for efficient performance and good customer service. This has little to do with government unions.
For example, in the middle-1800s the Pony Express could deliver a letter from St. Joseph, Mo. to Sacramento, Calif., a distance of 1,900 miles over mountains and through hostile lands, in 10 days.
Yet 168 years later, it takes Canada Post an average of nine days to deliver a letter to Lynden, Wash., a distance of 20 miles. OK, it crosses the border, but it can take that long inside B.C. or often it’s sent to the wrong place anyway.
Canada Post is slated to lose over $1 billion this year. Couple that with projected losses of $1.3 billion for ICBC, one wonders if it might be time to turn over these inefficient, top-heavy bureaucracies to private enterprise?
Nobody sends or receives much of importance through the mail anyway. We receive our bills and pay them online. Only the government and the banks use the post. Mostly what we find in out mailboxes is junk adverts.
Most of Canada Post’s revenue these days is shipping packages, a market that competes with professionals like UPS and FedX that are usually less costly.
Why do the Canada Post workers go on strike just before Christmas? Same reason teachers go on strike days before the kids return to school – maximum pain.
Dick Draper, Surrey
