It does them no credit, but it’s no surprise that the Conservative government let Canada Post drop its no-home-delivery bombshell the day after Parliament shut down for a six-week recess. The NDP’s Peter Julian called the manoeuvre “profoundly disrespectful to Parliament,” which it was, but it was also in line with how this government has handled the ongoing crisis at the national postal service.

The Conservatives have, in short, run as far and as fast as they could from Canada Post while its problems piled up. When they had a chance to tackle them, in the middle of the last decade, they turned their backs and let the Crown corporation grope its way to where it is now — planning to drastically cut service and raise prices in hopes of a short-term boost in profits.

Good luck with that. Canadians deserve better from a national institution that’s as old as the country. At the very least they deserve a decent debate over alternatives, not a drop-it-and-run plan.

The Conservatives, who pride themselves as consumer advocates, should at least take seriously the concerns of those worried about the loss of door-to-door service in urban areas, especially for seniors and the disabled (suburbs and rural areas have lived without that for years). Instead, Government House Leader Peter Van Loan disdainfully likens them to spoiled rich folk upset that they have to drag their garbage to the curb.

The opposition parties, too, have a responsibility to offer more than nostalgic laments for the good old days of the friendly letter carrier. So far, serious alternatives have been conspicuously absent.

But it’s the Harper government that deserves most of the blame for the bleak situation Canada Post finds itself in.

It’s not as though there weren’t any choices along the way. The move away from snail mail and towards email, texting and online bill paying has been underway for years, presenting the post office with an existential challenge.

But as Michael Warren, a former CEO of Canada Post, has written on the opposite page, the Harper government did have an opportunity to let the Crown corporation make fundamental changes that might have given it a fighting chance at real transformation.

Between 2005 and 2010 Canada Post was led by Moya Greene, a CEO with deep experience in privatization. At a time when the corporation was still financially healthy, she tried to persuade the government to allow it to sell a minority interest to the public, giving it an infusion of capital for innovation and opening the doors to a more entrepreneurial culture.

It was not to be. The Conservatives, supposedly the champions of more flexible, responsive government, didn’t want the political headache. Instead, Canada Post got the green light to borrow and invest billions in a “transformation” program to update the delivery of its traditional services (moving letters and parcels) and introducing an “ePost” digital offering that duplicated any number of private online services.

Greene soon moved on to head Britain’s Royal Mail, where she is overseeing a privatization plan of the type that has become routine in the most advanced European countries. As many have pointed out, Germany, Austria and the Netherlands have privatized and seen costs fall. Others, such as Sweden, have kept their publicly owned postal services but introduced more competition. The results have been better service for the public — and, importantly, more secure jobs for employees.

The Harper government, in contrast, allowed Canada Post to drift until it started hemorrhaging money (losses topped $100 million in the last quarter alone, and by one estimate could reach $1 billion a year by 2020). Its pension obligations are crippling, and as Warren has pointed out, it has lost an astounding $4.6 billion in equity value since 2008. It’s been heading for the iceberg at top speed.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Now Canada Post plans to take door-to-door service away from the one-third of Canadians who still have it and hike the price of a single stamp to $1 by the end of next March. It could have chosen less drastic alternatives, such as delivering two or three times a week. (Who actually relies on daily mail nowadays?) Instead, it has gone for the most disruptive option.

What a shame that kind of boldness could not have been harnessed at a time when Canada Post still had a fighting chance for a sustainable future.

Read more about: