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The only way to save Canada Post is to privatize it
650 sats \ 34 comments \ @grayruby 27 Nov Politics_And_Law
Nice opinion piece by Matthew Lau on the embarrassingly dysfunctional crown corporation that is Canada Post. He is too sensical for Canadians. They will call him a heretic. How dare we privatize that which we can continue to allow the government to screw up?
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/the-only-way-to-save-canada-post-is-to-privatize-it
TLDR: Canadians are paying a triple price: disruption of service during strikes, price-gouging on letter delivery and taxpayer exposure to losses. Canada Post has lost 3B over the last 6 years. Service is expensive and terrible. Workers are currently on strike, trying to exploit the demand of the busy holiday season for an 11.5% pay raise. Lau argues Canada Post should be privatized.
Nice idea Matt but it ain't gonna happen.
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75 sats \ 8 replies \ @Public_N_M_E 27 Nov
Yaknow what you get when you privatise your mail service??
Royal mail. It's not better, it's just for profit now. Same shit service, but this time with shareholders to pay for.
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54 sats \ 5 replies \ @grayruby OP 27 Nov
Ok commie. I know Brits love their shit social services as much as Canadians. Amazon and fed ex are pretty damn good at delivery. Honestly, I think most of the pro governmental services and monopolies folks have stockholm syndrome. Still love you Pub but you need to hate the government a lot more. Haha
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86 sats \ 4 replies \ @Public_N_M_E 27 Nov
🤣🤣 dasvidania comrade. (I'm sure that's not even close to how it's spelt).
But yeah, it's a strange one. Royal mail still has a royal charter despite being private. A first class stamp for example is expected to reach it's destination between 1-3 days. A second class is somewhere between 1-10days ish. Sometimes I've had mail next day, sometimes it's been weeks late. It's a dart throw more often than not.
Our services are a mess. Trains used to be public, now they're private and it's the same shit service at an ever increasing cost. Water, electric, gas all the same, private companies havn't given any improvement in service, all they've done is increase the cost.
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61 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined 27 Nov
It's actually pretty common for free market advocates to oppose privatization legislation over here and it's because they think the particular proposal will muck everything up even worse and people will blame capitalism for the failures.
You really can't count on getting good market outcomes unless the state removes itself (almost) entirely from a sector.
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73 sats \ 0 replies \ @Public_N_M_E 27 Nov
And people do exactly that. And start crying out to put their entitled hands into everyone elses pockets. Whilst pointing to the failure of a poorly run company is indicative of a failure of an entire system like capitalism. Thankfully I can't think of any specific monopolies we have but what what we do unfortunately deal with is not competitive pricing we deal with all the companies increasing their baseline as opposed to actual competition.
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21 sats \ 1 reply \ @grayruby OP 27 Nov
Private water, gas, electric here in Canada is not great either but they are government granted monopolies and still way better than what the government would be able to do. Public healthcare has become an utter, expensive disaster. It will take you 6 months to get an MRI if you are lucky and a year to see a specialist. Somethings are actually starting to slowly get privatized and it is helping to alleviate the backlog. Certain tests can be obtained privately now and pharmacists can now give prescriptions and renew prescriptions for basic illnesses so you don't have to clog up the system with people seeing doctors to get a prescription for pink eye or something like that.
The best maintained roads and highways I have seen are private whether toll or not.
Public education is a mess. Kids test scores are terrible and rather than fixing the issue they want to change the way tests are graded and teachers are measured.
Public sector unions have massive political influence in the country and impede democracy by slandering candidates that don't give them what they want.
Honestly, I have yet to see anything positive for society that government offers in a better way than private enterprise can.
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54 sats \ 0 replies \ @Public_N_M_E 27 Nov
This sounds like a carbon copy of the UK in all honesty. I am for private healthcare I don't think someone should be bankrupt because of a broken arm for example. But we have a similar mixture where if you splash some cash you can decrease your waiting time. Otherwise yeah you're looking at somewhere close to 6 months for an MRI here aswell. I can't say I have any modicum of a solution, but I don't think fully privatising things such as healthcare is in the best interests of the population.
Public education for example is contentious for me. Why am I funding a system I don't use? I don't have kids so why am I paying for someone else's to be indoctrinated into some overly leftist agenda posing as education?
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51 sats \ 1 reply \ @Undisciplined 27 Nov
Are competitors allowed to operate or did you get the worst case scenario of state granted private monopoly charter?
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43 sats \ 0 replies \ @Public_N_M_E 27 Nov
Both kind of. Royal mail is still kinda of most people's go to, as you can put something in a post box which is pretty convenient. Other services don't have those at all. But other services like DPD, FedEx, My Hermes all operate fine. But royal mail is probably the big player just as a hangover from being public. They were only privatised in 2013 so it's fairly recent.
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47 sats \ 16 replies \ @Satosora 27 Nov
Canadians have a pretty good health care system, though. Postal service is shit everywhere. Except in asia, those guys know how to move mail on motorcycles!
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60 sats \ 6 replies \ @Undisciplined 27 Nov
You're half right
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77 sats \ 5 replies \ @Satosora 27 Nov
Actually, it probably wouldnt be so bad if everyone didnt consume like they do. All of this consumption bogs down the system.
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80 sats \ 4 replies \ @Undisciplined 27 Nov
Sure, but Walmart doesn't say that their business model would work if only people would shop less.
Only the government complains about having too many customers.
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50 sats \ 3 replies \ @Satosora 27 Nov
They need to be more efficient, but when has government been efficient?
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70 sats \ 2 replies \ @Undisciplined 27 Nov
It literally can't be. That's the whole point of Mises' Socialist Calculation Problem thesis.
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40 sats \ 1 reply \ @Satosora 27 Nov
Right, that is the problem. There was a reason why Musk got into the space program.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 28 Nov
Rentseeking?
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20 sats \ 8 replies \ @grayruby OP 27 Nov
Canadian health care system is awful now. It used to be decent when I was young but as the population has grown and the demands on the system expanded it has become terrible. It is also one of the primary reasons taxes are so high.
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40 sats \ 7 replies \ @Satosora 27 Nov
Is it getting worse now? I know a lot of people still go over the border to get medicine.
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0 sats \ 6 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 28 Nov
It is still a quantum leap better than the privatised US health system which is the least efficient health system in the world. US health care system is a great example of how privatisation can be a complete and utter disaster. There are some things governments can do better than private enterprise.
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0 sats \ 5 replies \ @grayruby OP 28 Nov
Do you live in Canada?
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0 sats \ 4 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 28 Nov
Dont need to to know the US privatised health system is a complete disaster.
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0 sats \ 3 replies \ @grayruby OP 28 Nov
So how can you assert it is a quantum leap better if you have never interacted with it?
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0 sats \ 2 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 28 Nov
Can you not observe things from a distance?
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50 sats \ 0 replies \ @Rothbardian_fanatic 27 Nov
They should privatize post haste. They know what the monoply government services are doing to them. Yesssss .... MAID!!! Privatize it all!! Let the private doctors decide who to kill. OOps, they already do. Everything works better with private competition, especially when they can compete on price AND service.
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40 sats \ 1 reply \ @cryotosensei 28 Nov
Are these Postal workers grossly underpaid in the first place?
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby OP 28 Nov
No they are well paid for the work they do.
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40 sats \ 2 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 28 Nov
NZ Post remains a state owned enterprise but operates efficiently and provides reliable service. There are competitors but postal services tend to be a natural monopoly where the service can be most efficiently provided by one operator. With the rise of online shopping parcel deliveries become hugely important and allowing a private monopoly could be tantamount to allowing private interests to tax the entire online shopping sector. Delivery of letter has been in decline globally for decades with the rise of the internet creating a major challenge for all postal services. While state owned enterprises require skillful management it can be done. NZ Post has had to invest huge capital to modernise and remain competitive- part of its success may be due to the apparent success in isolating it from political agendas and supporting its development. Privatising natural monopolies can result in negative consequences for the wider economy.
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @grayruby OP 28 Nov
Does it lose billions of taxpayer dollars like Canada Post?
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Solomonsatoshi 28 Nov
No although I believe there has been significant investment in it over the years. The letters division of all postal services have suffered constantly reducing volumes for decades now.
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30 sats \ 0 replies \ @realBitcoinDog 27 Nov
Yea in USA I think it’s written into the constitution that we must have a postal service? But our solution isn’t to privatize it but sick on em Elon and DOGE! 🤣
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20 sats \ 0 replies \ @Butterfinger 28 Nov
Let it die
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