The Treasury Board is finally saying the quiet part out loud when it comes to the federal government’s counterproductive and spectacularly wasteful mandates on in-office presence. And, as expected, there is no rationale behind the decision. At least not one any senior officials are ready to publicly defend.
Bill Matthews, secretary to the Treasury Board, told a House of Commons committee that forcing employees back into offices is a “philosophical choice” and not grounded in any evidence or data.
Since 2022, the Treasury Board has consistently failed to justify its return-to-office (RTO) mandates. Public servants were lauded during the early COVID-19 lockdowns for their ability to adapt quickly to teleworking fulltime while continuing to deliver exceptional results for the people of Canada. Before the pandemic, the federal government was moving forward with plans to increase remote work flexibility across the public service and reduce taxpayer expenditures on office buildings.
Then RTO brought the modernization of the federal workplace to a grinding halt. Why?
We know RTO mandates are not about productivity because federal public servants’ have consistently proved that productivity increases when working remotely. Even now, as federal workers are spending three mandatory days in the office, most are logging on to video calls with their coworkers and stakeholders across the country. But now they’re doing it at loud, privacy-free workstations, often in crumbling buildings with ongoing health and safety concerns.
And increasing in-office requirements are certainly not about saving taxpayer dollars or addressing the needs of communities. Several of the largest government departments have declared that they will be unable to meet the latest four-day requirement beginning July 6 due to lack of space. The government has already had to walk away from its commitment to divest 50 per cent of its real estate holdings to accommodate the four-day mandate. Launched in 2019, the move to shed office buildings was seen as a critical opportunity to increase the availability of much-needed affordable housing units.
RTO also is doing nothing to address the cost-of-living crisis or skyrocketing energy costs. Just the opposite. In March, the International Energy Agency issued a 10-point plan to ease oil pressures caused by conflict in the Middle East. The number one recommendation was for all workers who can telework to do so, which would reduce on-road transportation pressures that account for 45 per cent of global oil demand. The Treasury Board didn’t get the memo.
Instead, the government is now spending more money to acquire new space – all while programs and services that Canadians rely on are being slashed. Widespread remote work rights – and the office real estate reductions those rights enable - could save the government $40 billion over 10 years, according to their own estimates. That money could be invested in building a strong Canadian economy that everyone can participate in.
RTO mandates are not in the best interests of most people across Canada. So, what is this “philosophical choice” that’s driving the push to cram desk workers back into expensive office space that reduces their productivity? Mark Carney and the Treasury Board don’t believe we deserve an explanation as to what – or who – is really behind these seemingly nonsensical policies.
After three years of the Treasury Board evading this question, we’re left with only one answer: that this government is choosing to prop up commercial real estate instead of modernizing the workplace of the biggest employer in this country.
We know that the commercial real estate sector has been pushing hard for widespread RTO mandates after the COVID-19 pandemic unexpectedly made remote work a reality for millions of workers. There are very real tensions in imagining an alternative future for the office zones of big cities. But groups as diverse as public sector unions to the Ottawa Board of Trade see opportunities for turning these into proper neighbourhoods that aren’t wholly dependent on the nine-to-five crowd.
And at the end of the day, the role of public servants is to deliver and design programs and services for Canadians as efficiently as possible. Not to prop up commercial landlords.
It’s up to all of us to stand up against this incredibly wasteful, barely defined “philosophy” that Carney and the Treasury Board are advancing. The people of Canada deserve a government that works for them – not for interests that their government won’t even name.
