Dear Editor:
Having not yet recovered from the trauma of Mr. Wall’s short-sighted and needless destruction of the Saskatchewan Transportation Company (STC), along comes another kick in the guts for small town Saskatchewan - this one dealt by the closure of 20 branches of the country’s largest banks. Similar situations exist in hundreds of other Canadian towns and villages in which, unless there’s a Credit Union, affected residents and businesses are left with no local financial services whatsoever.
We must remember that banks are huge, wealthy and influential corporations (which spend millions on lobbying the government to have things their way) and, like all corporations, the one and only item on their agenda is to make money – no social conscience or obligation to ‘serve’ anyone other than their shareholders. When that bottom line appears threatened, they jump ship!
Unlike waiting for the next provincial election to change Saskatchewan politics and protect our ‘public services’ (think STC), it may be worth our effort to try to return postal banking to Canada Post, a service provided in Canada from 1868 to 1968 – something the Canada Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) has been trying to do for many years.
Suggestions include writing a personal letter (postage free to the House of Commons, Ottawa, ON, K1A 0A6) to Prime Minister Trudeau and to Public Services Minister Judy Foote, requesting that the Canadian Government instruct Canada Post to add postal banking to their mandate.
Also, there are currently at least two petitions with that same request: one from CUPW - [http://www.cupw.ca/en/campaign/resources/petition-urging-government-canada-instruct-canada-postadd-postal-banking ] and the other from SumOfUs.org - [ https://actions.sumofus.org/a/pm-trudeauput-postal-banking-back-on-the-table ].
Check it out . . . Write the letter! Sign and Share the petitions! It’s worth a try . . .
Elaine Hughes
Quill Plains (Wynyard) Chapter
Council of Canadians
ARCHERWILL, SK
