Trains, planes and buses

I have crossed portions of this country by car, plane, train and bus. It is a bloody big country. Travelling across it can consume a lot of resources.I am also a realist in terms of the fact that companies need to make money. I am not surprised that the cost of travel with Air Canada, Via Rail, Greyhound and West Jet increases during peak times such as Christmas. But it is blatant price gouging when such companies increase their prices by 50% during peak times. It makes it even worse when the service is poor and when assistance is hard either hard to find or time consuming.  

For the past few years I have had the joy of spending Christmas Eve and morning with my daughter and her family in Sudbury, Ontario and Christmas evening with my son and his family in Duncan, BC. Because I have needed to be back in time for school, the trip has been short and quite expensive. Consistently the plane connections have been problematic. In fact on every trip west, I have arrived late due to a missed connection. On at least two of those times, the staff at Air Canada suggested that I might have to spend a night in Vancouver before getting on a plane to Nanaimo the next morning. To say I was not a happy camper on those occasions would be a gross understatement.

I was looking forward to this Christmas. Because I am not working next semester I would be able to spend more time out west. Some weeks ago I booked my plane fight west. I did not arrange for a flight east in part because I was not sure how long I would be out west (ah the joys of being retired!).  I had the thought that perhaps I would take the train back in part because I have never travel across the Canadian land mass in winter. I also assumed (hoped) that the train would be cheaper than the plane.

Last Friday I received an email from Air Canada telling me that my flight from Sudbury had been cancelled but that they had put me on the 6:00 AM flight to Toronto. There were a hundred reasons why that was not going to work including the fact that leaving at 5:00 AM for the airport would mean that I was not spending Christmas morning with my grand kids. So I called the number they gave me. After pushing a few buttons to get me into the right queue, a somewhat mechanical voice informed me that the wait for a representative would be somewhere between 26 and 45 minutes! Who has that much time to wait for someone to answer the call? It was clear that not only is Air Canada saving money by jamming more of us into their planes and by charging extra for every conceivable item, but they also are not hiring enough staff. One has to wonder if by making consumers wait for so long, if some folks just give up and didn't bother to complain.

But I had the time - so I waited. For the next 26 minutes I had to listen to extraordinary poor "music" interspersed with little ads telling me how wonderful Air Canada was. A few comments apologizing for the poor service would have been so much better. When my turn came, almost as soon as I started to explain the problem I was cut off - disconnected. I sat there, with the phone in my hand, unable to believe that a company that had spent the last 26 minutes bragging about their awards and is responsible for using all kinds of sophisticated technology, could not figure out how to make sure that calls don't get disconnected.

I re-dialed, went through the same process of pushing buttons when requested and was once again told that I would have to wait. This time it was not quite as long but I had to listen to the same terrible music and the same irritating bragging but from my perspective, clearly erroneous messages. Twenty minutes later a charming young lady came on the line, listened to my complaints about the music, the messages and the almost hour of waiting. She apologized for the fact that my flight had been switched. After some discussion (which included her going to talk to someone else) she agreed that Air Canada could and should refund my money.

The good news about all of this is that if I take the train out and fly back, I could potentially save approximately $400-500 by travelling a week later than I normally do. So perhaps I should thank Air Canada. But it was such poor service I don't think I will. They might inflict my comments on some poor sot waiting for their turn to complain.

Mail (or the lack thereof)

A few news cycles ago - before we had the chaos on Parliament Hill and then more recently the disclosure that a popular radio host, at the very least, has somewhat unusual sexual inclinations  and at the worst believes that he has the right to hurt women, there was a national conversation about our postal service. I keep on hoping that that conversation will resurface. I suspect however, that that topic has had its fifteen minutes of fame and will not appear on the front pages for the foreseeable future.

It was interesting conversation if only for the reason that both sides were being somewhat disingenuous. From the postal service the argument was that mail deliveries to private address has been consistently dropping, that they could not afford to deliver the mail to people's doorsteps and that as 2/3 of people in Canada already do without house delivery - it is not really that much of a change. Cost savings are required because Canada Post will be mired in debt within the next five years and laying off 5,000 thousands workers will alleviate part of that problem.

Of course Canada Post does not or cannot say that they are in debt because the Canadian government does not see a postal service as a national services that requires government support. Canada Post has therefore had to raise the cost of a single stamp to eighty-five cents. Eighty-five cents to mail a Christmas card! No wonder people don't use the mail. (I can remember my parents selling Regal Christmas cards and making enough, I think, to pay for at least part of their Christmas). But the biggest untruth about their rational is how many people already don't get door delivery. Yes, 19% of Canadians live in rural Canada (Statistics Canada) and all of them have to walk down to the end of their driveway or else drive to the nearest mailbox. But what the justifiers of cancelling our mail service don't say is that 12% of those who don't get direct delivery live in condos (Statistics Canada) and another 25% live in apartment buildings. In other words almost half of all Canadians still live in single dwelling units. Only those who live in new developments have to go and get their mail. The need to reduce service may be a reality - but please just tell us the truth.

On the other side of the argument are the unions who of course want to protect jobs (is the laying of workers one more stake into the heart of unions? There was a time when students use to be able to make good money either during the Christmas rush or during summer holidays). The defenders of the status quo only apparent argument is that it will negatively affect seniors and the disabled. Really? While there is no way of knowing where the majority of seniors and those who have disability issues live, it would seem to me that a significant proportion probably already do not have full access to mail delivery. Not a very effect argument.

What neither side is saying is that a postal delivery service is a national service that connects people. Gradually reducing government support which in turn affects the service's effectiveness is a classical neo-liberal approach to eradicating government controls and regulations. Other countries can maintain their postal system - why can't we?

For 20 years I lived in a rural area where I had to drive five minutes down to the corner to get the mail. It was not a big deal except for the fact that I frequently forgot to get the mail and the post people had to write me a note (and leave it in the mail box) telling me to get my mail more frequently. Except for junk mail, I get so little mail now that I only bother to walk downstairs to check my mail box every week or so. My landlady has, on occasion, needed to email me to ask me to get my mail as my box is over-flowing.

When I lose direct mail service and have to walk down to the corner to get it - I hope someone is prepared to have to figure out what to do with all of those unwanted flyers jammed into my box.