Return to Office

Return to office / where a mayor can actually act

A seat taken from somebody who had no choice.

By Alex Lawson

Start with the people who never got the option. The framer on site at seven. The deli clerk. The nurse coming off nights. The PSW. The cleaner starting at six in the morning. Their jobs never went remote, and their commutes never got shorter.

Now the federal government’s four-day return-to-office mandate is pushing public servants back onto Ottawa’s roads and buses at the same hours, all at once. Every seat filled by somebody who could have worked from anywhere is a seat taken from somebody who had no choice.

I don’t support the mandate. And I’m going to be straight with you about what a mayor can and can’t do about it.

The honest part first

A mayor cannot repeal a federal staffing policy. I can’t. Mark Sutcliffe can’t. Anyone who suggests otherwise is lying to you.

What the current mayor did do is cheer it on. In 2024, Mark Sutcliffe stood beside Doug Ford and said the more public servants downtown, the better. The city has spent public money on ads encouraging workers and visitors downtown to extend their time in the area, so that rush hour spreads out.

That’s the plan on offer: more people funnelled into the core, and an ad campaign asking them to linger on the way out.

And I’ll be honest about something else: I used to argue the other way. I run crews. I know what happens when people are in a room together. But the numbers on our roads don’t care what any of us used to think.

Registered
15,000+
Public servants registered to work at federal workplaces outside the downtown core.
Room for
684
Total capacity at the six existing federal workplaces outside the core, in Kanata, Orléans, and near the airport.
Three things a mayor can actually do
01
Put the city on record.
As mayor, I’ll put Ottawa formally on record asking the federal government to reverse the four-day mandate. Ottawa’s roads and transit carry the consequences of this policy. The city that hosts the workforce should have a position, on paper.
02
Bring federal worksites outside the greenbelt.
More than 15,000 public servants have registered for the program that lets them work at federal sites outside the core. Those six sites have room for 684 people. Land, zoning, and permits are the part a mayor genuinely controls. I’ll use them to get federal workplaces built where the workers already live: Kanata, Orléans, Barrhaven, and the south end.
03
Restore the rush-hour express bus network.
If the commuters are coming back, give them a bus worth taking. Station-to-station express service at morning and afternoon peaks, using buses Ottawa already owns or has on order. A deployment change, not a capital project, and already part of my transit plan.
Every seat filled by somebody who could have worked from anywhere is a seat taken from somebody who had no choice.
Alex Lawson
Builder, not politician

We’ve got a lot of work to do.

Ottawa deserves better.