Here’s to Canada Post, God Bless It

It’s hard to love governments because they all lie, cheat and steal but that’s no reason to despise all government agencies. Some serve us better than we deserve.

The armed services, for one, have always given more to their country than their country has given to them. The same may be said of policemen, who also go out and get shot at for our sakes. Adam Smith, high priest of market economics and the philosophy of the hidden hand which guides it, was a vigorous proponent of government enterprise in areas where the private sector, he said, would never serve adequately.

It’s a shame that people like the Fraser Institute wouldn’t read their patron saint instead of parrotting a few catch phrases from his great work; we’d all be better off for their enriched understanding, gained by going back to sources.

You don’t need be a rocket scientists to know that any day now, we can expect a campaign to further privatize Canada Post. Mikhail Gorbachev will be quoted as an authority.

When that day comes, let’s hope there are enough unindocrinated Canadians around to fight back and keep the government service. Warts and all, it’s a service. Private couriers can repeat that word service, and do, often, but they don’t understand it in the way it is understood by an institution as old as Canada.

All right, Canada Post is not what it was. Gone are the glory days when its people carried mail to your door so fresh the ink was wet. But the old, old service with its old, old unions and old, old customs is still service. Capital S. Service.

Anyone who doubts this might like to examine actual experiences instead of rhetoric about private courier mail. Experience is so much better than cant.

Federal Express, a famous private courier, once promised me 48 hour delivery, New York to Vancouver, of airline tickets to Yemen. They lost them in Buffalo. That was when I discovered that although Fedex and other couriers guarantee a 24 or 48 hour service across the border, it isn’t really a guarantee, it’s a pious hope, masquerading as a guarantee.

By the time Fedex delivered, I had gone to Arabia and was on my way home again.

“You promise something you admit you cannot guarantee,” I said to one agent.

“It’s not our fault.”

“It’s your fault you are engaging in falsely advertising guaranteed service.’’ He found my comments mundane. It’s very hard to catch the attention of people who are making money.

Private courier services are fine for one small, special group in society. Five days a week, they will pick up mail during business hours at an office in one large city and deliver it, during business hours, to another office in another large city.

Those of who don’t have business offices, namely almost all Canadians, are expected to remain perched near their front door for an entire day waiting for a courier who’s going to show up some time, when he’s ready, to pick up the mail. Getting mail involves waiting at home for another day, or two. In the age of two income families, most homes are empty most days. More work is being asked of the customer than of the server.

DHL is another well known international courier. Here’s a record of DHL delivery of a parcel from Fort Langley to Escuinapa, in Sinaloa, Mexico:

First, Vancouver denies service to Escuinapa and expresses doubt that any such place exists. (One of the first things you learn about international couriers is that none of them have maps in their offices and most are not sure if Mexico is in North

America, South America or Asia.)

Then, in order, just a few of the other problems:

1. The courier refused to accept a parcel because the householder hasn‘t weighed it for him.

2. The courier forgot to come.

3. On the next try, the courier promised to come before noon but didn’t come until 3 p.m., by which time the householder, who has already lost half his day, had left.

4. Then DHL confused a street name with the recipient’s name and only by luck did it ever arrive, which it did not after a few days but two weeks.

5. Finally, a complaint about the Vancouver office was rerouted from Canada to Mexico City, presumably by someone in Toronto who doesn’t have a map showing where Vancouver is..

A third international courier, name blessedly forgotten, was so embarrassed by its bad service it sent the parcel free. The Mexicans collected full fee at this end.

Should there be any possibility of private enterprisers like these taking over our government mail service run, do not walk, run, to your nearest Communist Party of Canada office, take out a membership and fight the good fight. Mr. Gorbachev was not right about everything.,

February/02