Government to release return-to-office review in 'next several weeks,' PM says

The government will be speaking with public service unions and issuing a review in the coming weeks about a potential full return to office for federal public servants, the prime minister says.

“I just want to be clear of that process,” Prime Minister Mark Carney said in a fireside-style chat with Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe Monday morning.

“One, is that we will be engaging with the public sector unions on the modalities of that, the appropriate levels of that. We will come out with a review on it over the course of the next several weeks.

“It will likely be different levels of return, depending on seniority, depending on goals, and obviously, depending on capacity.”

Carney went on to say he was a “huge fan” of the public service, and his aim is to ensure workers have the tools they need, including offices and workspaces, to make their jobs as impactful as possible.

The prime minister’s comments, made at a Mayor’s Breakfast event at the Rogers Centre in Ottawa, come amid rumours of a full-time return-to-office for federal employees, weeks after Parliament approved a Liberal budget calling for nearly 30,000 public service job cuts over the next three years.

City ‘preparing’ for influx downtown

Meanwhile, the City of Ottawa is preparing to host more public servants downtown, should the federal government order workers back to the office, the mayor said.

“They’re coming downtown multiple days a week now, so adding another day or two — if that’s what the federal government decides in the future — adding a day or two to that schedule, I think is feasible,” Sutcliffe told reporters after his conversation with Carney on Monday.

Although Sutcliffe stressed that the ultimate decision on remote work rests with the federal government, he said the city is taking steps to ensure public transit would be able to accommodate any future influx of government workers streaming into the core.

“We’re preparing at the City of Ottawa. We’re building more public transit,” he said. “We’re increasing the frequency of public transit, and we’re about to open the east-end extension of LRT, which is going to build thousands of people from Orléans into the downtown core every day.”

Ottawa commuters are not convinced, however, as public servants told the Citizen they’re worried commute times could balloon with more rush-hour riders.

Last week, Treasury Board President Shafqat Ali said he was not aware of any plans to send public servants back to the office.

Nonetheless, rumours have swirled since La Presse reported last Monday it had seen an internal Treasury Board document detailing the government’s plans to require all public servants to report to the office five days a week as of Jan. 1, 2027. According to that report, executives would be back full-time as early as next year and other public servants would move to four days per week in July.

Both the Ontario government and the City of Ottawa have ordered public servants back to the office full-time. City workers will be mandated back in office five days per week as of Jan. 1, 2026.

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