Canada Post is an essential public service no different than health care, education, parks, highways or B.C. Ferries. Like other public services it does not lose money since those expenditures are simply the cost of providing that essential service for the benefit of us all.

Any talk about public services losing money is just an ideological statement from those that still cling to the failed 45-year economic experiment of Thatcher, Reagan, Mulroney and Chretien.

While public services can always be examined to find service improvements, simply blindly applying a private business model is what has led to the hollowing out and decline of public sector services in Canada since the 1980s.

This is no time for American style individualism or a return to Chretien style austerity with service and tax cuts.

It is time to talk proudly about and to protect and rebuild Canada’s public services, to adequately compensate our public sector workers with a living wage commensurate with the cost of living in their region, and to return to a truly progressive taxation system that properly taxes wealth, profit and capital so that the most privileged in society can once again contribute their fair share to the country they have so greatly benefited from.

Guy McDannold

Shirley

I applaud the leadership of the postal union in response to the federal government’s decree that Canada Post become financially viable.

The decision to go on strike is well thought out. The Canadian people believe that the innovative postal management can easily turn around the recent losses and make the post office “great again.”

If Canadians just show their appreciation by a modest increase in the wages for postal workers and managers, the resulting harmony would immediately show up in the bottom line.

What’s the worst that could happen? Possibly the remaining users of the post office might learn to use more reliable alternative methods to send their letters and packages, but that’s a remote possibility.

Possibly the short-sighted federal government might stop subsidizing the post office, causing its complete closure. How farfetched is that?

But even if that happens, no problem. The highly trained postal workers and managers can easily rebound. Apparently Blockbuster, Kodak and the Hudson’s Bay........

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