The debate over whether or not public servants in Ottawa should be allowed to work from home has raised its ugly head again after Treasury Board recently announced that federal employees would have to spend three days a week commuting to work starting in September. Until now, they’ve only been required to report to work two days a week.

Not surprisingly, the directive is being fought tooth and nail by the Public Service Alliance of Canada which represents tens of thousands of federal workers who are upset at the idea of having to spend an extra day at work every week.

While the debate may seem pretty black and white to most observers, it’s actually much more complicated than that. First of all, federal workers should realize that if it wasn’t for the pandemic, they would still be going into work five days a week and not two or three.

The issue came to a head during collective bargaining negotiations between PSAC and the federal government last spring. At the time, the two sides signed a letter of agreement outside the collective agreement which stipulated a hybrid remote work model in which workers needed to spend a minimum of two days a week in the office.

The Treasury Board’s decision to increase the in-office requirement to three days was made unilaterally, which has the unions and their members up in arms. But that seems to be the federal government’s modus operandi. After all, they made the decision to allow federal employees to work from home two days a week unilaterally. No one with the Treasury Board bothered to inform the City of Ottawa about the move – the same City of Ottawa that invested billions of dollars in an LRT system that was designed to transport thousands of federal civil servants to and from work every day. Nor did they inform the City of Ottawa about their plans to reduce their downtown office portfolio by 50 per cent over the next 10 years.

I can perfectly understand why federal employees want to work from home as much as possible. It means spending less money on commuting and more time with their families. Less money on bus passes, less money on gas, less money on parking and less money on anything else they would normally spend money on downtown if they worked there. And while it makes sense from a quality of life and environmental aspect, it hurts those downtown businesses which used to depend on federal workers, and it has a massive impact on future LRT revenues.

Ordinarily I would argue that federal workers be compelled to work downtown three days a week, but the genie has already been let out of the bottle. What the federal government needs to do is sit down with the City of Ottawa and work out a plan that transforms downtown into a community where people can live, work and play and not let it turn into a ghost town which it is quickly becoming.