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GATS would threaten or distort the foremost pub- lic purpose of Canada’s postal service system: to provide high-quality, affordable postal and related services to all Canadians in all regions of the coun- try by means of a government institution that is directly accountable to the Government of Canada and Parliament. [...] It discusses the under- lying tensions between the GATS and the Canadian postal system, noting the importance of Canada Post’s univer- sal and community service obligations, and the conditions necessary for the public corporation’s financial sustainability. [...] Act- ing through its global lobbying associations, the courier industry has succeeded in making postal and express delivery services one of the central topics of the WTO GATS negotiations.25 As already noted, one goal of the industry’s GATS strategy is to use these negotiations to try to achieve pro- competitive re-regulation of the postal and courier sec- Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. [...] The objects of the Corporation are: (a) to estab- lish and operate a postal service for the collection, transmis- sion and delivery of messages, information, funds and goods both within Canada and between Canada and places out- side Canada; (b) to manufacture and provide such products and to provide such services as are, in the opinion of the Corporation, necessary or incidental to the postal serv [...] The WTO Secretariat noted: “As of 5 February 1998, with the entry into force of the Fourth Protocol of the GATS and its attached commitments on basic telecommunications, the vast bulk of the world market, measured in rev- enue terms, is subject to open markets for the sup- ply of basic telecom services whether on the basis of simple resale or over a supplier’s own infra- structure.