Faced with the threat of federal legislation ordering them back to work, postal workers have hinted they might defy the order, or perhaps engage in some sort of on-the-job protest, such as a work slowdown. "If you get a lot of people back unhappy," one worker was reported as saying, "things might not be as efficient." Tempting as it is to quote Dorothy Parker in response (on being told that Calvin Coolidge was dead: "How can they tell?") the point is surely well made. Back-to-work legislation may succeed in getting the mails moving again, assuming the posties do not simply opt to transform a legal strike into an illegal one. But even in the best case, it will not solve any of the post office's longer-term problems.

It will not lead to faster service or lower prices for long-suffering customers of Canada Post's letter-mail monopoly. It will not assuage private couriers' concerns that the corporation is using the profits on its monopoly in first- class mail to undercut them in those businesses where it does face competition. It will not improve the poisonous labour relations that have shut down the mail a dozen times in the last three decades.

Most of all, it will do nothing to spur the company and its workforce to prepare for a future in which the monopoly will be obsolete.

Many of the services traditionally performed by the post office, as is well known, have now slipped irretrievably beyond its grasp. Electronic mail, telephone banking, faxes and other technologies have combined to liberate many forms of written communication from the post office's once-absolute monopoly. (How absolute? As recently as 1980, when the regulations governing the new crown corporation were under consideration, post office management proposed that the monopoly should extend to prohibiting private citizens from delivering their own Christmas cards.)

As these technologies spread, it is beyond dispute that much of the present traffic in first-class mail will disappear. But that will take years. And until that time, many if not most people will be forced to use Canada Post at least some of the time. The operative word here is "forced." There isn't anything about the technology of the traditional written letter that obliges us to rely on Canada Post to deliver it. Nor is there some natural competitive advantage that confers upon the corporation its monopoly status. It is the law.

And a bizarre law it is, too. Under Section 14 of the Canada Post Act, the corporation is granted the "exclusive privilege" of delivering every letter sent or received in Canada. The only exception is for letters "of an urgent nature," provided the carrier charges at least three times the price of a regular stamp. The penalty for delivering an underpriced letter: five years in jail.

Why does the government deny mail users their choice of carrier? There is only one reason: because if they had a choice, they wouldn't choose Canada Post. Or to put it in the way that monopoly's proponents prefer: because that is the only way to maintain universal service at a uniform price.

The universal service complaint is bosh: private couriers will deliver a letter to any address in Canada tomorrow, provided the price is right. But on the uniform price, they are quite right.

The standard 45 cent stamp is much more than the cost of delivery on high-density urban routes. It is much less than it costs to deliver a letter to places in the hinterland. If competition were allowed, then private couriers would probably be able to undercut Canada Post on urban routes. But they would probably avoid rural routes, unless the price were allowed to rise to cover the cost of delivery.

So perhaps it is time that we debated this long-established national policy.

The effect of the uniform price rule is to redistribute income, from city residents to their country cousins. As a matter of efficiency, this is plainly absurd. In no other similar service is it considered the norm to ignore costs in this way: not for air or rail transport, not for long-distance telephone calls.

For that matter, we do not mandate a single national price for houses, from Toronto to Temiskaming. Why should it be any different for the mail?

But the real argument against uniform pricing is one of fairness. Why is it fair that everyone who lives in a city, rich or poor, should be forced to pay for everyone in the country, poor or rich? Or if subsidizing rural mail delivery is a worthy social goal, why not do so directly, out of general revenues? Why not put rural routes out to tender, on a least-subsidy basis?

Why this elaborate shell game?

Most especially, if fairness is the issue, why should those who cannot afford faxes, email or couriers be held captive by Canada Post's monopoly, when the better off have long since flown the coop?