January 21, 2005

(Letter sent to the Charlottetown Guardian.)

Dear Editor:

I would like to respond to the letter by Lloyd Kerry entitled Islanders know a snow job published in the January 20th edition of your newspaper.

The author takes exception with the statement posted on our website which states that, "Canadians enjoy one of the lowest basic domestic lettermail prices among comparable industrialized countries".

As we acknowledge in our statement, we do not have the lowest postage rates in the world. We know, however, that we compare favourably to many of them. As Mr. Kerry rightfully pointed out, to send a basic letter within the United Kingdom costs approximately 65 cents. Other examples include France and Italy, where the same letter will be delivered for 72 cents. The German postal administration charges 80 cents to mail a similar item. And the Japanese pay almost one dollar to send a basic letter from Tokyo to another Japanese destination.

The author also correctly notes that it costs more in Canada to send a domestic letter than within US borders. However, this is a fairly new development, which is attributable to the volatile exchange rate. In mid-June 2003, a US basic lettermail stamp at 37 cents was worth 51 Canadian cents.

Another consideration omitted from Mr. Kerry's letter is the Canadian geography. It costs much more to send a letter from Charlottetown to Vancouver, a distance of almost 4,000 kilometres, than it does to send the same item from London to Glasgow, some 600 kilometres away. Yet, Canada Post still charges less than the Royal Mail.

I trust this clarifies the points raised by Mr. Kerry.

Sincerely,

François Legault
Manager, National Media Relations
Ottawa (613) 734-8888