For brief weeks each spring, the city of Ottawa resembles something of a national capital. If we ignore the architectural blandness of its city center, the absence of public places or large avenues comparable to those of the other G7 capitals and its constantly increasing itinerant population, we indeed succeed in detecting a any beauty through the multicolored tulips that bloom and amaze visitors from other provinces and cities of the country. The coldest national capital in the world, after Ulaanbaatar, in Mongolia, can at least claim the title of the capital that transforms the most when its much-awaited spring returns.
Alas! While the tulips are already fading, unions representing public servants are promising “a summer of discontent” if Treasury Board President Anita Anand does not withdraw her recent directive on the mandatory return to the office three days a week from September 9 next. They encourage their members to file “tens of thousands of individual grievances” and threaten to take their employer to court in order to get them to back down.
They even ask New Democratic Party (NDP) leader Jagmeet Singh to withdraw his support for Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government if it continues to “so blatantly disregard the rights” and well-being of workers. . “It’s time to act, Mr. Singh,” reads a letter the unions sent to the NDP leader last week. We implore you to stand with us, in solidarity, against these injustices. »
Ordinary Canadians, especially those for whom teleworking is not an option, may not shed many tears over the fate of poor federal civil servants forced to “endure” such working conditions. The latter have just signed collective agreements granting them salary increases of 12.6% over four years, in addition to enjoying job security and indexed pensions among the most generous in the country. And they brandish the threat of “a summer of discontent” because they are asked to return to the office three days a week, instead of two days currently, in order to improve the functioning of federal departments and to promote interpersonal relations essential to the development of team spirit?
The outgoing president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, Chris Aylward, instead accused the Trudeau government of having made “a political decision” by requiring face-to-face work three days a week. According to him, the Treasury Board has not proven that teleworking harms the productivity of federal employees or services to citizens. Canadians who have had to wait in line for hours at passport offices may not feel the same way. The ranks of the federal public service have exploded since the election of the Liberals in 2015, especially since the pandemic. But the quality of services provided by the federal apparatus has not increased.
Mr. Aylward is not entirely wrong to see this as a political decision, at least in part. For months, the Trudeau government has faced strong pressure from Ontario Premier Doug Ford and the business community. Faced with a downtown Ottawa that is increasingly taking on the appearance of an almost ghost town, populated only by drug addicts, they would like to dictate a return to the office.
Long recognized for its lack of dynamism — we made fun of it, in English, by making Ottawa “the city that fun forgot” —, the city center is currently experiencing the worst crisis of its existence. The absence of federal workers in restaurants and businesses is made more striking by the presence of distressed homeless people lingering outside the entrances to the Rideau Center and through the streets of the once charming ByWard Market.
The federal government is by far the largest employer in the National Capital Region, which includes the cities of Ottawa and Gatineau. More than 150,000 of the approximately 368,000 federal civil servants live there. Teleworking of civil servants does not only affect the gloom of the city center. Ridership at the OC Transpo transportation company was only 66% of its pre-pandemic level in 2023. Worse still, the light rail network, the O-Train, attracts only half of the passengers it he hosted before the pandemic. In comparison, ridership of the Société de transport de Montréal reached 80% of its pre-pandemic level in 2023.
The future of downtown Ottawa has become a political issue that will be at the heart of the next federal election campaign in the capital. The Liberals are counting on the threat of job cuts in the public service that the election of a government led by Pierre Poilievre would represent to save the day in Ottawa. They are betting that the majority of voters in the city of 1.4 million residents will be in favor of their efforts to revitalize the city center by asking federal employees to go there more often for work. But first, they will have to go through this summer of discontent.