In praise of the mayoral candidates against RTO | Opinion

Mayoral candidate Jeff Leiper made a campaign announcement about return to office in Ottawa on Aug. 24, 2026. Photo by Jean Levac /POSTMEDIA

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I would like to congratulate mayoral candidate Alex Lawson for praising mayoral candidate Jeff Leiper for stealing his idea, which is fair, because Lawson had already stolen Leiper’s.

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Leiper moved to scrap the city’s colossally stupid five-day return-to-office rule in September 2025. Lawson was first to satellite offices. In late August, they each amplified the other. Neil Saravanamuttoo added an approving “worthwhile” to the whole thing. It’s refreshing to see politicians acknowledging each other’s good ideas.

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I started calling for this idiotic policy to be scrapped in December 2022. “You get the best out of people by treating them right,” I said then, “not by squeezing until they’re dry. It’s so obvious, we shouldn’t even have to say it. Same with the opinion, straight out of the Eisenhower era, that humans are only productive when they’re sitting behind an office desk, supervised, their faces bleary under fluorescent light. As someone who’s been working from home for more than two decades, I find this notion highly offensive.”

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Now, it’s true that 85 per cent of municipal employees are in jobs that require physical presence, so reversing the city’s RTO would only affect a few thousand people. But municipal politicians can put pressure on the federal government to delay or cancel its own mandate for most public servants to be in office four days a week. That is what the three mayoral challengers are agreeing to. Leiper and Lawson also want the feds to use satellite office spaces so that people can work in an office that’s closer to where they live.

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And it’s about so much more than being stuck on an overcrowded bus or getting delayed by a square wheel on the train. It’s about flexibility, time with children and other family members, money for daycare or gas or parking or transit or $22 sandwiches, and quality of life, because nothing saps your will to live like wasting two hours of your day getting to and from the office.

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Leiper wants “maximum” flexibility when choosing working arrangements, and decisions based on “operational needs, employee performance, and the services Canadians deserve.” Lawson added that for city staff, “I think managers know better than politicians whether employees need to be in the office to do their job. They’re the ones who should decide.”

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As the city’s loudest and most obnoxious opponent to RTO, this makes my little heart sing. Mayor Mark Sutcliffe, who has repeatedly expressed support for RTO as beneficial to both transit and downtown, is of the view that this is all up to city manager Wendy Stephanson. He recently admonished politicians for politicizing the issue. (Like politicians do anything other than politicizing political issues.)

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Also, isn’t the job of mayor to lead?

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It seems like there’s enough bad stuff in the news, what with the trade war and the general cost of living crisis, why do we need to force everyone who’s been working remotely for years without difficulties to commute lengthy distances (in time if not in kilometres) just to sit in one chair instead of another and do meetings on Teams with colleagues who aren’t in the same building anyway?