Terence Corcoran: Feds bail out Canada Post while threatening Amazon
Two Canadian corporate competitors in ongoing conflict over parcel delivery made headlines last week. One involved government-owned Canada Post’s continuing struggle for existence and its failure to reach a labour agreement with 55,000 union workers. The other was Amazon’s decision to shut down its Quebec distribution network and lay off more than 1,900 workers, including 250 newly unionized employees it failed to reach agreement with. There are obvious connections between the two headlines that no one properly acknowledged.
William Watson broached the policy implications of those connections on this page yesterday but they are worth further investigation.
One explanation for treating the two stories as almost unrelated events may stem from the Trudeau government’s public handling of the central issue, which is the transformative competitive conflict between Canada Post and its major rivals, including Amazon. The two companies are in the same business, the delivery of small packages, with Canada Post unable to compete against Amazon and other players due in part to the post office’s mail delivery mandate but also to its union-dominated workforce.
After Amazon announced last Wednesday that it would be closing seven Quebec warehouse facilities and outsourcing the delivery of packages to “third-party” and “local small businesses,” Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne fired off a public letter to Andy Jassy, chief executive of Amazon in Washington. The tag line was: “This is not the way business is done in Canada.” Champagne said he was writing with “strong disappointment” over Amazon’s behaviour. He urged Jassy to “reconsider” the layoffs, adding with a hint of aggression that Amazon’s action “calls for a review of
Read more on financialpost.com
