Right in the centre - Decisions, decisions

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Published on Thursday, July 7, 2016

By Ken Waddell

Neepawa Banner/Neepawa Press

This quiet summer morning it’s difficult to write a column as an old saying is hanging over our heads. The saying goes something like this, “We can handle adversity, it’s uncertainty that drives us crazy.”

We are pretty spoiled, and I speak personally here, as we live in the best country in the world. We live in a great area in a good province. We have it pretty good. We were all reminded of that by the Citizenship Judge McCauley on Canada Day at Riding Mountain National Park. In his remarks prior to swearing in 93 new citizens he made very similar comments and added that millions of people world-wide would jump at the chance to become Canadian citizens. Within that context and knowing that violence is erupting all over the world today, often in the name of ISIL extremism, our problems, whatever they may be, are very minor.

So here’s our biggest problem today. We need a decision on paper distribution. By the time you read this in The Banner, you will know what decision we have taken. Canada Post Corporation has rejected the Canadian Union of Postal Workers proposal in their 2015-16 version of the labour dispute. As of Tuesday morning, CP may lock out the CUPW workers by Thursday midnight. As many of you know, that does not in any way affect the distribution of the Neepawa Banner and the Neepawa Press within the Town of Neepawa. However, it does affect distribution of the Rivers Banner totally and the Neepawa Banner and Neepawa Press outside of Neepawa.

What to do, what to do?

Well we can’t just sit back and hope for the best. We have to make a decision. It looks as if all the post offices that aren’t run by CUPW workers will stay open. However, the Neepawa Post Office is operated (and I might say quite well) by CUPW workers. The others are not run by CUPW workers and they too are run quite well. I have had few things to find objectionable about the post office workers and we have been a customer for 27 years. The Banner group of papers have been one of the largest Canada Post customers in south-western Manitoba. We are fortunate and blessed to be the publishers of the two largest papers in rural south-western Manitoba and three of the six highest circulation papers, so we spend a lot of money with Canada Post.

So, as of Wednesday morning, it looks like we will have to drive our papers to the post offices as Neepawa and the Brandon distribution centre may well shut down due to a lock-out. 

Still under strong consideration for the future is the possibility of moving away from Canada Post. Canada Post does a pretty good job actually. But, and there’s always a but, it’s hard to be held periodically hostage to postal disruptions. Canada Post’s rates go up every January just as regular as clockwork. They hold the unique position of being a major supplier to community newspapers and our major competitor. Canada Post does all it can to take flyer delivery business and advertising away from the newspapers. They set the rates and the rules and that sometimes makes it difficult to compete.

One of the reasons that the rates keep climbing is that Canada Post Corporation has a huge upper management cost as is often rightly pointed out by the union. They also insist on offering the very obsolete and expensive door-to-door delivery to about 40 per cent of the country. Why it still is done seems ridiculous as everybody pays the same rate but only 40 per cent of the country get the special treatment. Canada Post could save a lot of money by setting up community mail boxes where they currently do door-to-door delivery.

So, all that being said, we have to make a decision not only this week but in the coming weeks.

Because of the uncertainty, we haven’t been able to make concrete plans, but rather have had to consider a number of alternative delivery systems. We will do our best to keep our readers informed, but be assured the papers will go through to as many readers as possible.