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But the postal union wants delivery declared a constitutional right, and the NDP has never managed to free itself from its union origins. The union has the support of a small but very vocal constituency that says seniors and the handicapped would find the shift burdensome. The City of Hamilton has launched a court challenge, and a group of Montreal-area mayors are seeking to join the union lawsuit. Mulcair is keen to align himself as well, especially in Quebec where he’s in a fierce territorial battle with Justin Trudeau’s Liberals.

It is a pledge of astonishing irresponsibility and suggests that the NDP remains a party that, despite its protestations, is deaf to the basic realities of financial responsibility. A 2013 report indicated half of Canadians send no more than two pieces of mail a month. Many community boxes are positioned next to large trash cans, the better to dump the flyers and junk mail that make up so much of its business. The pension plan for postal workers had a $6.3 billion “solvency deficit” at the end of 2013 which it is struggling to make up, and which won’t be erased by continuing to pour a quarter of a billion dollars a year into a letter-delivery system few people use.

A more sensible approach would be to seek an alternative solution. Seniors and shut-ins clearly have special needs. But the same applies to all their basic necessities — food, clothing, medicine. If those essentials can be acquired without spending a quarter-billion dollars a year having them hand-delivered, why is the mail any different? Is it really the one commodity seniors can’t obtain by any other means?

It’s fine for opposition politicians to make pie-in-the-sky pledges as they scrabble for votes, free of any responsibility to deliver on them. But governments must make decisions based on financial sense rather than cheap populism. Mulcair evidently remains more committed to placating union friends and pandering to special interests than delivering pragmatic, responsible policies based on sensible thinking. Until he frees himself from such compulsions he remains ill-prepared to head a national government.

National Post

KellyMcParland<