Councillor wants to reverse return-to-office mandate for city staff

An Ottawa councillor plans to bring forward a motion at the next council meeting to reverse the city’s back-to-office mandate. CTV’s Camille Wilson reports.

One city councillor says he will bring forward a motion at the next council meeting to reverse a planned return-to-office mandate for municipal public servants.

Kichissippi Ward Coun. Jeff Leiper put forward a notice of motion Wednesday that, if passed by council, would direct the city manager to rescind the plan and continue to accommodate employees who want to work from home.

“We’ll debate that in two weeks. I’ve heard from many City staff about the diminishment in the quality of both life and work the order will create, with too little benefit,” Leiper said on Bluesky.

City Manager Wendy Stephanson announced in late August that the city will return to “five days in the office as the new standard for all City employees” starting Jan. 1, 2026. Mayor Mark Sutcliffe estimates 2,400 to 2,500 municipal employees were reporting to the office two to four days a week, with the entire workforce spending an average of 4.65 days a week in the office.

Sutcliffe says Stephanson made the decision to instate the policy, but said he believes it is about “building a great culture in a great workplace.”

The move to end hybrid work arrangements for City of Ottawa employees came one week after Premier Doug Ford urged municipalities to bring workers back to the office five days a week.

Leiper has previously called the decision “short-sighted” and said the move would order workers to take on more costs and longer commutes.

Leiper’s motion, which will come before city council on Sept. 24, says, “evidence has not been provided that either productivity or the delivery of taxpayer value has been diminished under the current arrangement or that either could be significantly enhanced by a five-day-a-week-in-the-office standard.”

Speaking on Newstalk 580 CFRA’s Ottawa Now with Kristy Cameron, Leiper said he’s heard a lot of positive reaction to his proposal.

“The reaction that I’ve received from the public, even from city staff who have been able to get word to me quietly, has obviously been very positive. There are some naysayers out there who really want to see people work in an office, for some reason, but the overall reaction has been very positive from the public,” he said.

Leiper said the vast majority of city employees do on-site work, but a hyrid arrangement can make a difference for those who can make use of it.

“No one is asking the firefighters to work from home, obviously, but it is a quality of life difference, and in an environment where we’re competing for talent, in an environment in which adding more people commuting to work on the roads is just going to add to the congestion disaster we have on the streets, I think it makes sense to give people that continued flexibility.”

Earlier this summer, the Ontario government ordered provincial public servants back to the office full time starting in January, with a four-day in-office mandate set to begin in mid-October. In addition to calling on municipalities to follow his lead, Ford also said the federal public service should return to working in the office full-time. Currently, the hybrid work model requires federal employees in the core public service to be in the office a minimum of three days a week, something a spokesperson for Treasury Board President Shafqat Ali told CTV News Ottawa, “strikes the right balance.”

Leiper said the workers who currently work from home are mostly on computers and have been working productively since the COVID-19 pandemic sent people indoors.

“There are certainly hundreds if not a couple of thousand people in the City of Ottawa who are doing work that mostly involves writing stuff on a computer and talking to people on video conferences and they should be allowed to continue to do it in that hybrid environment,” Leiper said.

Speaing to CTV News Ottawa on Friday, Kanata South Coun. Allan Hubley said he opposes Leiper’s motion.

“I support the city manager’s direction on this,” Hubley said. “I appreciate that she’s making accommodations for employees that may need to continue to work from home for whatever period of time, and that she’s leaving discretion to individual managers to review those cases.”

With files from CTV News Ottawa’s Camille Wilson

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