On the day that Canada Post unilaterally declared its intention to impose a major service cut and a substantial price increase on a massive number of Canadians, the country’s Conservative consumer champions went missing in action.
No duo of federal ministers was on hand in the lobby of the House of Commons to promise — in both official languages — to read the riot act to the offending service provider.
No Conservative MP was around to do the rounds of the afternoon political shows to explain where the Canada Post cuts fit in the pro-consumer manifesto that was presented under the guise of a throne speech only last October.
They bailed out of town for six weeks just ahead of the announcement that urban mail delivery is coming to an end, a decision that Canada Post would never have made public without giving the government a heads-up that it was coming.
And so it is that a governing party that proclaims itself willing to take on the telecom industry to get a better deal for consumers and — if need be — to intervene in its affairs to create competition apparently can’t be bothered to lead a search for an alternative model to that of one of its own Crown corporations.
It should come as no surprise that a political X-ray of electoral Canada reveals that the phasing-out of door-to-door mail delivery will hit hardest in opposition-held territory.
The move will most change the social and visual landscape of Canada’s inner city. Over the next five years, the high density areas of Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal will have to accommodate legions of community mailboxes. Those communities happen to be home to scores of less affluent Canadians who often continue to rely on snail mail by necessity.
Outside of Alberta, those are neighbourhoods where the Conservatives have precious little to lose. In byelections held in Bourassa and in Toronto Centre last month, support for Stephen Harper’s candidates ran in single digits.
But the change will go unnoticed in the rural areas and in the suburban developments where mail delivery is already a thing of the past, if it was ever offered at all, and where the Conservatives draw the bulk of their support.
In this, there is a parallel with the recent Conservative cuts to employment insurance. They primarily hit regions where seasonal work and opposition MPs are the rule and government MPs the exception.
But the similarities don’t stop there and that is almost certainly unfortunate for the government.
As politically targeted as they may have been, the EI cuts still ended up coming back to bite the Conservatives. Worried by the potential damage to the local socio-economic fabric, employers and governments across Atlantic Canada and Quebec took up the fight against them. Conservative Party fortunes declined steeply across the region over the past year.
In the Canada Post instance, more than one big city mayor will likely not be amused by the prospect of harbouring communities of community mailboxes. Premiers — especially in Ontario and Quebec, where provincial elections are looming — will be sorely tempted to chime in.
As surely as day follows night, the Conservatives face a barrage of questions about the future role of Canada Post after the House reopens in the new year.
More so than in the case of EI, the government will be hard-pressed to keep the battle on the limited battleground of retail politics. For in the end, the manner and the context of Wednesday’s announcement says more about the confused collective state of mind of the Conservatives than the measures themselves.
It is not that many Canadians harbour the notion that the current Canada Post model can be sustained in the face of ever-growing online competition.
But the passivity of the Harper government in the face of Wednesday’s developments stands in such stark contrast with the activist pro-consumer talking points it has chosen to hammer throughout the fall session as to suggest that the government has lost if not its way at least its messaging track.
Chantal Hébert is a syndicated Toronto Star national affairs writer.