Canada Post's request for a 25% increase in the price of stamps puts the question of privatization back on the table.
Time to finally privatize Canada Post | Fraser Institute | Vincent Geloso, Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University"
September 25, 2024 - "Canada Post wants to increase the price of a stamp by 25 cents to $1.24 to keep up with inflation and rising costs. But Canada Post has often relied on this reasoning for previous price increases since it stopped being a government department and became a Crown corporation in 1981. Since then, it’s jacked up prices every time it’s had 'financial difficulties.' The source of these difficulties has changed over time.... The answer is, however, always the same. Prices must increase. Indeed, since 1981 stamp prices have increased 98 per cent (after adjusting for inflation). In other words, the price for stamps have increased far beyond the rate of inflation.
Canada Post LLV, 2010. Photo by Kristoferb.
"Why does Canada Post keep getting away with this? Because it has a monopoly over most of the letter market in Canada. And while it competes with private companies ... in the parcel market, Canada Post can borrow money at much lower costs than its rivals because it is a Crown corporation ultimately backed by taxpayers....
"Normally, a company facing losses and declining demand would innovate and reduce costs.... However, due to its monopoly over most of the letter market, Canada Post lacks this incentive. In can simply pass the burden onto consumers by raising prices, which is exactly what it has done since the 1980s. And as a Crown corporation, it cannot be purchased by another company without express approval from Ottawa. So, what’s the solution?
"In Europe, due to a directive from the European Commission, all letters regardless of weight have been open to competition since 2013. The directive does not mandate the privatization of state-owned postal companies; it simply ends postal monopolies. Combined with local liberalization efforts before 2013, this directive has forced state-owned postal service providers to better control costs because they cannot turn to taxpayers (for subsidies) or consumers (by raising prices) to bail them out.
"Some countries such as the Netherlands, Austria and Germany [and Britain when still in the European Union - gd] went further and privatized their postal operators.... In the 10 years following privatization, prices for stamps and other postal services fell by 11 per cent in Austria, 15 per cent in the Netherlands and 17 per cent in Germany (adjusted for inflation). All these countries now have lower postal prices than the European average.
"Predictably, postal service providers in these countries found new methods of organizing their activities, tying multiple services together to generate economies of scale, and moved fast in adopting new information and logistical technologies. Due to the incentives of competition, providers focused their efforts on controlling costs — a focus Canada Post will never achieve as long as it’s a Crown corporation with a monopoly....
"Policymakers in Ottawa should finally put postal liberalization and privatization on the table. Otherwise, it’s only a matter of time before a new problem emerges, which Canada Post will use to justify another price increase."
Read more: https://www.fraserinstitute.org/article/time-to-finally-privatize-canada-post
Why We Should Privatize the Postal Service | ReasonTV | October 6, 2017:
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