Mount A President Robert Campbell to head independent advisory panel that will review the country's postal service

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OTTAWA - Like a veteran weather forecaster suddenly allowed to seed the clouds, Mount Allison University President Robert Campbell now has his chance to change what he has hitherto only studied.

It's as much a part of Canadian life as the weather, too: the post office.

For 20 years, Campbell -- a political scientist in charge of the Sackville institution since 2006 -- has analyzed postal systems as they remade themselves in a world of e-mail and fierce competition from couriers.

For his 2002 book The Politics of Postal Transformation, he travelled the world to learn from postal, government, union and regulatory officials in 10 countries from Finland to New Zealand.

"I'm told he's one of the top five people in the world who know postal systems," said the new head of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, Denis Lemelin.

The non-partisan Campbell has also advised postal unions, multinational corporations and governments.

They all "think of me as a reasonably objective guy who's built up a lot of knowledge and doesn't have a particular ideological axe to grind," he said.

Lawrence Cannon, the minister responsible for Canada Post, certainly trusts Campbell.

On April 21, he appointed him to head a three-person independent advisory panel that will review the country's postal service and report publicly by December.

Now that Campbell gets to apply his knowledge, the question is how drastic his prescription for Canada Post will be.

Cannon allayed some fears at the outset by dictating that privatization is not an option. Canada Post will stay under federal ownership and must maintain an affordable universal service to the public.

It must also make money, just as it does today.

So if those key fundamentals aren't going to change, what else might?

Something has to. Canada Post itself has said it is "at a crossroads," with costs of the rural service rising faster than inflation and putting pressure on its finances, for one thing.

There are other problems, too.

For example, Canada Post CEO Moya Greene has described some of Canada Post's antiquated computers as "state of the ark" and obsolete multi-storey main sorting stations still occupy the downtowns of major cities, close to yesteryear's railway stations -- a colossal waste of prime real estate.

Keenly aware of the obstacles to efficiency, don't look to Campbell to be a stand-pat defender of the status quo.

The Canada Post of the future "is going to face more challenges to be successful," he said.

Six years ago, in a policy journal, he recommended sweeping changes.

One core recommendation, if echoed by the Campbell panel and then embraced by the Conservatives, would provoke bitter opposition from the powerful union.

Campbell wrote that the government should gradually remove Canada Post's "exclusive privilege."

Canada Post has a monopoly to carry letter mail cheaply. By law, competitors have to charge at least three times Canada Post's rate for a 500-gram letter.

This is intended to protect the profits the post office needs to be able to fulfill its government-dictated mandate to serve unprofitable sectors, such as rural Canada.

Right-of-centre think-tanks that favour privatization, such as the C.D. Howe Institute, see the exclusive privilege as a crutch that robs postal managers of any real incentive to improve.

Campbell, too, has written that governments ordering other postal services to do away with their monopoly have forced them to improve productivity and efficiency.

The union counters that "the exclusive privilege is what allows us to extend services to every door," as Lemelin put it.