CBSA scraps plan to move 1,200 public servants from Vanier to downtown

Place Vanier Towers on River Road North in Vanier, which are government offices. Photo by JULIE OLIVER /POSTMEDIA

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The Canada Border Services Agency has abandoned plans to move about 1,200 public servants from a Vanier office tower to a building downtown.

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Last summer, the agency considered a proposal from Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) that would have moved employees working in Tower B at Place Vanier on North River Road to 300 Slater St. by April 2027, according to documents obtained through an access-to-information request.

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The move would have helped reach the government’s goal of the time to cut its overall office portfolio in half. PSPC put aside $3 million for the move, which would have saved the government $16 million over five years once complete, according to the documents.

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The new site would have had 1,100 work spaces for the 1,200 employees, which would have been enough desks if CBSA employees were still going to be working there for three days a week, according to the July 2025 proposal.

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“From a workplace employee change management point of view, the move to 300 Slater should appeal to a wide number of employes (sic),” the proposal read, citing “access to public transit, restaurants, and other services available in the downtown core” as benefits.

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The internal documents pitched the move as a “win/win” for both PSPC and CBSA.

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Directors general were set to meet with impacted staff in November 2025, and the moving process itself was slated to take place over 20 months, according to a second document dated October 2025.

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But that was before the federal government announced that most public servants will be required to work in offices four days a week come July, up from the current three-day requirement.

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Rebecca Purdy, spokesperson for the CBSA, confirmed to the Ottawa Citizen that the department is “no longer moving employees from 333 Norther River Road to 300 Slater St.”

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Purdy did not elaborate on the reasons the agency ultimately scrapped the move.

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The October 2025 document also said that the project would “outline a preliminary timeline to facilitate the moves along with the decommissioning and releasing of 355 North River Road (Tower B).”

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PSPC did not provide comment before deadline.

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The Treasury Board made the announcement in February that it would be changing its remote work policy. In addition to having most public servants in offices for four days a week come July, executives have been required to be in their offices full-time as of Monday, May 4.

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The controversial four-day in-office mandate has left some departments scrambling to figure out if they will have enough office space for the summer surge of public servants.

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CBSA, however, has said it will have enough desks.

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The agency will “have offices available for all employees and will implement RTO4 on July 6,” Purdy said.