Is there enough office space?

Ontario’s full-time return-to-office (RTO) mandate for 60,000 provincial public servants is colliding with limited office capacity, thousands of accommodation requests and falling morale, according to unions.

The Doug Ford government has not signed any new leases or purchased additional real estate to support the full-time return, the Ministry of Infrastructure confirmed to CBC News, nearly two months after the RTO deadline took effect in early January.

A ministry spokesperson said that “at this time, no new leases or purchases have been initiated related to the OPS Return to Office mandate,” and that there had been “no reduction nor consolidation to office space related to the pandemic.”

The policy stems from an August 2025 announcement by Treasury Board President Caroline Mulroney that roughly 60,000 employees of the Ontario Public Service (OPS), provincial agencies, boards and commissions would “increase their attendance to four days per week” starting Oct. 20, 2025 and then move to full-time, five-day-a-week in-office work effective Jan. 5, 2026.

However, both the Ministry of Infrastructure and Treasury Board declined to provide details on “the number of workspaces available or whether additional space is needed,” according to a previous Global News report. 

“We have reviewed all government office space, and the vast majority of OPS offices have adequate space for a successful return to office,” a government spokesperson said, according to the report. The spokesperson added that Infrastructure is “working with other ministries to address any limited instances of space constraints” and pointing to 4,200 facilities across Ontario that could support a return. The government did not categorically state that there is enough space to accommodate all civil servants.

Unions report overcrowding and ad hoc arrangements

Unions say conditions in many buildings do not match the government’s assurances.

AMAPCEO, which represents about 17,000 professional, administrative and supervisory staff in the OPS, says members are facing overcrowded floors, shared desks and makeshift workspaces in common areas, with some managers sending staff home because there are no workstations available.

“Our members are reporting one of two things, they're either being told, ‘Stay at home. We can't accommodate you in the office,’” AMAPCEO president Dave Bulmer told CBC. “Or stricter managers are saying, ‘You have to be in here.’ And there's eight people in a boardroom working on their laptops.”

Bulmer said workers are sharing desks or crowding into common areas and that morale “is at an all time low,” a description he said he did not offer “with any degree of exaggeration or hyperbole.”

Ontario Health “does not have sufficient space to accommodate employees” and is “having to temporarily resort to desk-sharing assignments as they transition back to five days a week in-office,” AMAPCEO also said.

Thousands of accommodation requests in backlog

The RTO order is also straining the province’s accommodations process.

Bulmer told CBC that about 6,000 requests for individual accommodations are currently in the system and that a review process which used to take roughly 20 days is now taking months. The requests cover health, disability and other individual circumstances.

The government spokesperson quoted by Canadian HR Reporter acknowledged that “many employees had requested work-from-home accommodations” as the full-time office requirement took effect.

OPSEU and opposition question planning and pay-off

The Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU/SEFPO), representing roughly half the OPS workforce, is challenging the government’s planning and transparency.

Amanda Usher, chair of OPSEU/SEFPO’s OPS Unified Central Employee Relations Committee, said the province’s explanations do not “pass the smell test,” according to the CBC report. 

“At best, this looks like a lack of due diligence. At worst, it raises serious questions about transparency and how these decisions are being made.” She cited “overcrowded offices, broken furniture and a general lack of planning,” and framed the issue as one of “public dollars, public services, and whether decisions are being made in a way that people can trust.”

Opposition parties at Queen’s Park warn the RTO may hurt, rather than help, productivity. NDP finance critic Jessica Bell told CBC the government did not adequately plan for space and said “it's just downright disrespectful, and it also impacts productivity.” Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner called for a return to hybrid work, saying the government is “making an absolute mess out of a dictate coming from the premier, where there's absolutely no plan on how to deliver it.”

Office space is also an issue in the federal government’s own RTO mandate.