Canadians may recall that just prior to Christmas, Canada Post was heavily criticized for the exorbitant fuel surcharge charged to customers on their holiday packages. NDP leader Jagmeet Singh called on Prime Minister Trudeau and Canada Post to drop the fee for the holiday period, to help relieve Canadians already bludgeoned by inflation and the prime minister's carbon tax. But, it never happened..The whole affair, given the festive timing, was appropriately Dickenes-que. Singh, in the role of Bob Cratchit, was asking for the modern equivalent of extra coal, while Trudeau and Canada Post were resplendent as the miserly duo Scrooge and Marley. One can almost see it as a future (and cringeworthy) CBC mini-series..Unlike the beloved Victorian tale and its happy ending, the recent Canadian political version concludes more like a particular scene from the 1994 movie ‘The Mask,' when Jim Carrey’s character feigns a grievous injury and says dramatically, “Tell Tiny Tim I won’t be coming home this Christmas.” Then, he pretends to die. Miraculously, he then stands abruptly to accept an acting award..Singh’s performance was no less thespian: Once he had finished milking it for all it was worth, he exited the stage leaving Canadians angry at Canada Post, wondering what the point of it was..The fact he walked away is a shame, as Singh along with his MP’s could have politically capitalized on the issue by forcing the government to act, while simultaneously reducing Canadians holiday expenses. It’s not like it went away either, as Canadians send and receive parcels year-round, not just at the holidays. It’s not unheard of in such a vast country as ours to have distant relatives and want to send them a birthday gift, to say nothing of the sheer volume of business/retail related shipping..Canada Post's defence is that it has had a fuel surcharge incorporated as part of its shipping fees for the last 20 years and the increased rates are due primarily to the high cost of diesel fuel..According to their website “domestic surcharges are based on the average price of diesel as measured by Kalibrate Technologies Ltd., an independent company that monitors fuel prices in Canada. Each week, we review the fuel surcharge and adjust it in accordance with the domestic fuel surcharge index.”.The fuel surcharge is quite straight forward. It’s a sliding percentage scale applied to the regular rate for shipping a parcel. How they come to that regular rate is a bit more complicated — they call it 'volumetric shipping.' This is essentially a calculation using the volume and weight of the package in addition to factors such as distance, the origin and destination, and other business elements. This method helps keeps overall costs inexpensive by utilizing space effectively so that whether you’re shipping something 4,500km or 45km, nobody is getting gouged..Also a little-known fact is that Canada Post is an arm’s length crown corporation and doesn’t receive federal funding. Its ability to operate its giant logistic web is done entirely off the revenues it generates and has been in the red for quite some time. Not surprisingly it passes those increased operating expenses down to their customers to stay afloat. As the price of fuel goes up, their expenses go up, and in order to keep the mail in people’s hands that money must come from somewhere and unfortunately, it’s our pocketbooks..So really, Canada Post isn’t the greedy villain, it’s as much a victim of the carbon tax as the customers it serves. This is probably the main reasons Singh’s performance had an extremely short run. He knew he was playing Canada Post as a scape goat for political points while propping up the government at the root cause of the rising shipping rates. If Canadians had got wise to his theatrics, he might have been booed off the political stage..Canada Post has its faults, of course. But, the fuel surcharge expense isn’t one of them. It’s simply a symptom of a larger problem — the carbon tax and the Trudeau government. The latter, apparently committed to their role, exclaimed “Humbug!” and left Canadians empty-handed while simultaneously seeking to spend $2 billion dollars to buy themselves shares in a company that doesn’t even exist..Who knew it was the government, and not Canada Post, that was mailing it in the entire time..John Thomson is a retired veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces, children’s author, and aspiring columnist. He lives and writes in Moose Jaw, SK.
Canadians may recall that just prior to Christmas, Canada Post was heavily criticized for the exorbitant fuel surcharge charged to customers on their holiday packages. NDP leader Jagmeet Singh called on Prime Minister Trudeau and Canada Post to drop the fee for the holiday period, to help relieve Canadians already bludgeoned by inflation and the prime minister's carbon tax. But, it never happened..The whole affair, given the festive timing, was appropriately Dickenes-que. Singh, in the role of Bob Cratchit, was asking for the modern equivalent of extra coal, while Trudeau and Canada Post were resplendent as the miserly duo Scrooge and Marley. One can almost see it as a future (and cringeworthy) CBC mini-series..Unlike the beloved Victorian tale and its happy ending, the recent Canadian political version concludes more like a particular scene from the 1994 movie ‘The Mask,' when Jim Carrey’s character feigns a grievous injury and says dramatically, “Tell Tiny Tim I won’t be coming home this Christmas.” Then, he pretends to die. Miraculously, he then stands abruptly to accept an acting award..Singh’s performance was no less thespian: Once he had finished milking it for all it was worth, he exited the stage leaving Canadians angry at Canada Post, wondering what the point of it was..The fact he walked away is a shame, as Singh along with his MP’s could have politically capitalized on the issue by forcing the government to act, while simultaneously reducing Canadians holiday expenses. It’s not like it went away either, as Canadians send and receive parcels year-round, not just at the holidays. It’s not unheard of in such a vast country as ours to have distant relatives and want to send them a birthday gift, to say nothing of the sheer volume of business/retail related shipping..Canada Post's defence is that it has had a fuel surcharge incorporated as part of its shipping fees for the last 20 years and the increased rates are due primarily to the high cost of diesel fuel..According to their website “domestic surcharges are based on the average price of diesel as measured by Kalibrate Technologies Ltd., an independent company that monitors fuel prices in Canada. Each week, we review the fuel surcharge and adjust it in accordance with the domestic fuel surcharge index.”.The fuel surcharge is quite straight forward. It’s a sliding percentage scale applied to the regular rate for shipping a parcel. How they come to that regular rate is a bit more complicated — they call it 'volumetric shipping.' This is essentially a calculation using the volume and weight of the package in addition to factors such as distance, the origin and destination, and other business elements. This method helps keeps overall costs inexpensive by utilizing space effectively so that whether you’re shipping something 4,500km or 45km, nobody is getting gouged..Also a little-known fact is that Canada Post is an arm’s length crown corporation and doesn’t receive federal funding. Its ability to operate its giant logistic web is done entirely off the revenues it generates and has been in the red for quite some time. Not surprisingly it passes those increased operating expenses down to their customers to stay afloat. As the price of fuel goes up, their expenses go up, and in order to keep the mail in people’s hands that money must come from somewhere and unfortunately, it’s our pocketbooks..So really, Canada Post isn’t the greedy villain, it’s as much a victim of the carbon tax as the customers it serves. This is probably the main reasons Singh’s performance had an extremely short run. He knew he was playing Canada Post as a scape goat for political points while propping up the government at the root cause of the rising shipping rates. If Canadians had got wise to his theatrics, he might have been booed off the political stage..Canada Post has its faults, of course. But, the fuel surcharge expense isn’t one of them. It’s simply a symptom of a larger problem — the carbon tax and the Trudeau government. The latter, apparently committed to their role, exclaimed “Humbug!” and left Canadians empty-handed while simultaneously seeking to spend $2 billion dollars to buy themselves shares in a company that doesn’t even exist..Who knew it was the government, and not Canada Post, that was mailing it in the entire time..John Thomson is a retired veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces, children’s author, and aspiring columnist. He lives and writes in Moose Jaw, SK.
