Dude was getting lonely not being able to micromanage the lives of government employees.
Text of the article at the time of posting:
Ontario ordering public servants back into office full time
Current mandate of 3 days a week has been provincial government policy since April 2022
Mike Crawley · CBC News · Posted: Aug 14, 2025 7:17 AM PDT | Last Updated: 1 hour ago
Premier Doug Ford’s government is ordering Ontario public servants to work from the office four days a week starting this fall and then full-time in January.
It’s a change from a policy that has been in place since April 2022, when provincial government employees were mandated to be in their offices at least three days per week.
Employees of the Ontario Public Service, provincial agencies, boards and commissions must “increase their attendance to four days per week” starting Oct. 20 and transition to full-time hours in-office effective Jan. 5, 2026, said Treasury Board President Caroline Mulroney in an announcement Thursday.
Ford says he believes government employees are more productive when they are in the office.
“How do you mentor someone over a phone? You can’t. You’ve got to look at them eye to eye,” Ford said during an unrelated news conference Thursday in Pickering.
Ford also suggested having provincial workers return to the office is better for the economy, pointing out that many small businesses that rely on foot traffic from office workers have suffered due to remote work policies.
“There’s hard-working entrepreneurs that their business has basically just died when they weren’t seeing the flow of traffic.”
The news follows on the heels of announcements by four of Canada’s big banks — RBC, Scotiabank, BMO and TD — that staff at their Toronto headquarters must spend at least four days a week in the office, effective this fall.
‘Everyone needs to go back to work,’ says Ford
Ford said his government wasn’t influenced by the bank mandates, but said business leaders he’d spoken with agree “everyone needs to go back to work.”
“We look forward to having everyone back; we’re very grateful for the work they do. We have the best public service in Canada and I appreciate the work they do every day,” he said.
Ontario’s top bureaucrat, Secretary of Cabinet Michelle DiEmanuele, said in a memo obtained by CBC News that the decision “is in line with an increasing number of organizations across the public and private sectors.”
The province’s move comes just two weeks after it reached a new collective agreement with AMAPCEO, which represents some 14,000 professional, administrative and supervisory employees in the Ontario Public Service.
The province was “hellbent on removing” employees’ options for remote work during those negotiations, says AMAPCEO president Dave Bulmer.
“I am incensed by this morning’s announcement,” said Bulmer in a message to union members. “We have shown that we can, and should, be treated as the capable, trustworthy professionals we are — professionals capable of working for Ontario from anywhere.”
Bulmer says there should be no changes for provincial employees who have a formal, signed agreement allowing them to work remotely, and says AMAPCEO members who want to work remotely should make an official request now.
Officials from OPSEU, the union that represents roughly half of the Ontario Public Service workforce, said they will issue a statement in response to the changes later on Thursday.
The provincial government’s single-largest office space in Toronto, the Macdonald Block complex, is undergoing a $1.5 billion renovation and has been shut down for six years.
Staff of several provincial ministries have since been working from rented office space scattered around the city’s downtown.
Federal government employees are currently subject to a three-days-per-week minimum in the workplace, imposed last September. There’s been some evidence since that the policy is not being strictly enforced.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Senior reporter
Mike Crawley has covered Ontario politics for CBC News since 2009. He began his career as a newspaper reporter in B.C., spent six years as a freelance journalist in various parts of Africa, then joined the CBC in 2005. Mike was born and raised in Saint John, N.B.
With files from Sarah Petz
It’s not “go back to work”
I work remotely and get a lot done. I do way more than my peers.
It’s wait in traffic unpaid, but a shitty lunch, drink shitty coffee, poop in someone else’s toilet with neighbours, not have access to all my reference books or have to lug them around, then I get to work with a shittier chair, stare at a cheap fuzzy monitor that bugs my eyes, and not have any privacy or quiet to focus.
There was one time I had a corner office, with a door, and a stocked bar, and was allowed beers at lunch (I would class problems as zero, one, or two beer problems). But everything since then has been awful open plans or hot desking, and the beer has all dried up.
My home office wins by a mile.
Hundo. These are morons who do fuckall from home and think everybody else is doing the same. My sick time has skyrocketed since they revoked my ability to work from home, and my productivity has dropped significantly.
“How do you mentor someone over a phone? You can’t.” Ford said
We have literal suicide prevention phone service that does this, Doug.
This quote is the most out of touch boomer shit
Everyone needs to go back to work
Once again, people in charge who clearly did fuck all from home and assume everybody else does fuck-all from home, too.
These people ARE going go work. “Going to work” implies going to do their job. Shit, for me “going to the OFFICE” means a REDUCTION in work because everybody’s always coming by my desk for shit which is distracting me from doing my work.
Fuck every one of these people who can’t understand the difference between “going to work” and “going to the office”. Especially the ones who have vested interest in raising need for office buildings so their developer buddies can steal extra money.
I don’t work for government but some day I will piss on his grave. And Mike Harris’ too.
Fuck Doug Ford.
What the fuck is this shit? Doug Ford and the “business leaders he’s spoken with” need to go fuck themselves. Do we need another pandemic just to sort this shit out?
Feudal lords need to see their peasants toiling in the fields, otherwise they feel sad.
Ain’t no fields left when you pave the greenbelt and put up another toll highway
Gosh I’ve never seen Doug ford legislate in my presence, how can he do his job by television? What a lazy shithead, he needs to get to work, by being in my specific presence. Genius fuck.
They want people to quit.
I like Ford however, for the young families working from home, it must have been a bonus and not taking your kids to child care. But that’s my point, he should have had more licensed child care facilities in place FIRST before demanding back to the office ruling. Now, what do they do when there is a waiting list as long as your arm?
Genuinely curious, what do you like about Ford?
As a tax payer, fuck this guy for wasting resources. As a person who drives, fuck this guy for making traffic worse. As a human, fuck this guy for making the lives of my fellow citizens worse.
Fuck this guy. Who can I call or email to say this is not ok?
He needs to traffic to keep getting worse so he can keep not fixing it by building tunnels and destroying bike lanes.
As a tax-payer, ask him how the new train line is coming along.
Insiders say it’s as fucked now as it was a year ago, as the experienced talent is churning through in a swirling torrent of frustration. You can’t “rockstar contributor” around “shit management” at any rate.
Dipshit Doug ford says “fuck climate goals, productivity and efficiency.” Waste fuel. Waste time. Waste money.
Conservatives aren’t happy until you aren’t happy. The point is to suffer.
“Ford also suggested having provincial workers return to the office is better for the economy, pointing out that many small businesses that rely on foot traffic from office workers have [suffered due to remote work policies]”
This basically assumes if you work from home you never leave, dont order in, or don’t shop in the stores in your area. What if I work from home but I walk to my corner bagel store for breakfast every morning? What’s going to happen to the bagel store in my neighborhood if I need to now drive 1-2hrs into the city?
Acknowledges foot traffic is important for local businesses but can’t make the same connection for cyclists using bike lanes.
Also, this is more of a symptom of the dumb as hell separation of commercial and residential development that Canada is just barely now overcoming (and even then we’re not upgrading neighbourhoods to mixed zoning unless the entire area is being torn down and redeveloped). You have tons of Downtown businesses that rely on the influx of commuters to operate while people working from home wanting to go to a restaurant are out of luck because their entire district bans commercial buildings of any kind.
Heh. On the ground floor of this building is a restaurant. Mixed-use isn’t futuristic; it’s just sensible. I hope we can get over this bungalow addiction and get more mixed-use neighbourhoods like this one.
The commercial first floor and residential higher floors configuration has been used as early as Carthage. It’s literally ancient history yet our governments are shocked when it works so well.
“We need more cars on the road so I can build tunnels. Fuck bikes. Fuck transit. We need more unhappy, crowded people. And their antivax germs.”
The most deadly plague is conservatism.
Send them the bill for the commute time and mileage.
You know this wouldn’t ever be a mandate anywhere if we just make commute part of the work hours. Not even paying for parking, gas or transit. Just the time. All companies would immediately back down and order you to wfh.
They’d just make you live in the office.
Noooooo
And not the cool “The Office”. The shitty one you work in right now.
Or get another job. Many companies are doing this now. My company is doing this. I have to be at work 5 days a week anyway so it doesn’t matter to me but it was like this before COVID and companies are paying rent with few people there so they want them in. Find a company that will have you at home. It’s getting a lot harder now.
These companies should consider selling their useless real estate. It was like this before COVID, and workers finally won. Now the companies are back to trying to justify the millions they waste a year on real estate so they can justify why they don’t have to give their workers better pay.
Or just leave your house when work time starts and leave work early to account for traveling home.
Dont tell anyone but thats what ive done for years, granted its only a 10 to 15 min commute.
“How do you mentor someone over a phone? You can’t. You’ve got to look at them eye to eye,” Ford said during an unrelated news conference Thursday in Pickering.
Just because you are personally incapable of growth, don’t inflict it on the rest of us!
Ford said his government wasn’t influenced by the bank mandates, but said business leaders he’d spoken with agree “everyone needs to go back to work.”
Aren’t politians meant to represent the will of the people? Doug’s always listened to his corporate buddies though.
Damn… I guess I never mentored anyone. Got paid for it though!
Edit: slack and video calls. Technically not phone.
Also what’s wrong with a hybrid model or let individual teams decide. I can get all the learning needed in 2 days each week and the rest of the week can be over teams if needed. It’s a really good schedule for training
Nothing.
This is so Starbucks (and others) can keep all their stores open instead of having to close the ones that are every other block because there’s less people in the office.
Which, as another commenter noted, is ridiculous. If you can’t run a functional office with work from home employees, you’re really just showcasing how piss poor of a manager you are. Can it be turned around by a younger generation stepping in to show how its done? I’d sure like to think so.
