Aug. 14, 2025 "Ontario orders its public servants back to office full time, saying it reflects ‘current workforce landscape’": Today I found this article by Phil Tsekouras on BNN Bloomberg:
More than 60,000 Ontario Public Service workers will be required to return to the office full time starting in January 2026, the province announced Thursday.
Minister Caroline Mulroney, who serves as the president of the Treasury Board, made the announcement in a news release and said the transition “represents the current workforce landscape in the province.”
Ontario Public Service workers had previously been mandated to work from the office a minimum of three days a week. The province said that, based on the nature of their work, over half of all public servants are already required to attend the office in-person full time.
“As the government delivers on our plan to protect Ontario, we will continue to drive public service excellence for the people of Ontario. Effective January 5, 2026, the Ontario Public Service and its provincial agencies, boards and commission public bodies will return to the office full time,” Mulroney wrote.
Employees currently working in the office three days a week will need to increase their in-person attendance to four days a week starting on Oct. 20, before remote work comes to an end in January, the province said.
Mulroney said that the move is an “important step” that supports the government’s efforts to build a “more competitive, resilient and self-reliant Ontario.”
Ontario’s public servants were first called back to the office for a minimum commitment of three days per week back in 2022. At that time, roughly half of them had been working remotely for part, or all, of the two years that followed the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Last year, federal employees in the core public service were called back to the office for a minimum of three days a week.
Rogers Communications Inc. joined a number of other companies in the private sector last month in asking its corporate employees to return to the office. The telecom company is now requiring workers to be in the office four days a week as of October and five days a week starting in February.
TD Bank, RBC, and Scotiabank have also mandated a four-day in-office work week starting in September.
‘Everyone needs to go back to work’
Speaking to reporters about the decision at an unrelated news conference on Thursday morning, Premier Doug Ford said he believes workers are “more productive” in the office.
“How do you mentor someone over a phone? You can’t. You’ve got to look at them eye-to-eye, over the water cooler, wherever, train them, camaraderie. Plus, the economy too,” he said, adding that businesses in Toronto’s financial district have suffered from remote work policies.
“I’ll just use downtown Toronto, for example, the PATH. You know there’s hardworking entrepreneurs that basically their businesses just died when they weren’t seeing the flow of traffic,” he said.
Ford underscored the decision by the big banks and Rogers to force workers back to the office five days a week did not influence the timing of the province’s decision.
“I understand all the companies I’ve talked to, from the banks to the insurance companies, to everyone else, everyone needs to go back to work,” he said.
Sept. 5, 2025 "‘Back to the Stone Age’: Union representing Ontario professional workers files dispute over full-time return to office policy": Today I found this article on BNN Bloomberg:
A union representing more than 16,500 professional employees who work for the Ontario government has filed a dispute over the return to office policy announced by the Ford government last month.
AMAPCEO, The Association of Management, Administrative and Professional Crown Employees of Ontario, said in a news release that it filed its dispute on Sept. 2.
The union is claiming in its dispute that the government violated the collective agreement by not providing the required advance notice of its plan to “effectively end remote and hybrid work.”
The province announced Aug. 14 that more than 60,000 workers with the Ontario Public Service will be expected to return to the office full time starting on Jan. 5, 2026.
Treasury Board President Caroline Mulroney said at the time the move “represents the current workforce landscape in the province and it reinforces our commitment to reflecting the people and businesses we serve across Ontario.”
But AMAPCEO President Dave Bulmer said in a statement that the union was “blindsided” by the memo issued by Cabinet Secretary Michelle DiEmanuele announcing the change.
“The required two-week notice period would have given us the opportunity to
meet with the employer,
share our concerns,
and advocate against the secretary’s plan to roll the public service back to the Stone Age,”
Bulmer said.
AMAPCEO has requested that the Aug. 14 memo be rescinded so that “proper advance notice” can be given. The union is also requesting more information about how the government made the decision.
Most OPS workers are currently required to be in-office at least three days a week. The government said in its announcement that would ramp up to four days as of Oct. 20 ahead of the five-day expectation in the new year.
Many major employers have been implementing more stringent return to office policies in recent months, but there are signs that many workers are not on-board.
A recent Angus-Reid survey found that 76 per cent of those with previous remote work experience would prefer to work either fully or partially from home.
It also found that 57 per cent of Canadians believe remote workers are as productive or more productive than those in the office,
rising to 73 per cent among those with remote work experience.
In a petition signed by more than 12,000 members – more than half its membership – AMAPCEO criticized the new policy as being detached from the learnings of remote work during the pandemic,
namely that many people are still able to work effectively while
ditching lengthy commutes
and striking more of a work-life balance.
The union is also questioning how the government made its decision.
In a statement to CP24, Mulroney’s office confirmed the government is in the process of checking that it has enough space to accommodate all its workers in-office at once.
“We are currently reviewing all government office space to identify if there are any space limitations to support the Ontario Public Service’s return to 5 days in the office, effective January 5th, 2026,” the statement read.
With files from Chris Fox
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