Despite the lifting of most COVID-19 restrictions at all levels of government, federal office buildings still have a high rate of empty workstations, according to internal records.
Conservative MP and once party leadership candidate Scott Aitchison filed an Inquiry of Ministry in late October to find, across departments and agencies, the number of government-owned buildings, their current occupancy levels, and the projected occupancy in a post-pandemic setting.
The Inquiry response filed Dec. 14 was obtained by Blacklock’s Reporter and reviewed by The Epoch Times.
It shows that the occupancy for Health Canada’s Ottawa offices was at 20 percent (251 out of 1243). Office buildings in Scarborough and Longueuil had better levels, with respectively 66 percent and 68 percent occupancy.
Health Canada said in a post-pandemic setting that its Ottawa offices would go to 70 percent occupancy.
One organization under Health Canada indicated an over-capacity due to employees working on rotations.
The National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg indicated a maximum occupancy of 800 and a current level of 894, with a projected post-pandemic level of 950.
Agriculture Canada indicated that it’s offices in Ottawa had a close to 60 percent occupancy rate as of late October, with 490 out of 821 spaces being occupied.
But it estimated that in a post-pandemic setting its occupancy level for that office and all others would be from current occupancy to max occupancy, hence 490 to 821 for the Ottawa buildings.
The department didn’t say whether this was due to current understaffing or an intent to prolong remote work.
Fisheries and Oceans has most of its 13 buildings in Halifax with a maximum occupancy of 1,203. The Inquiry says the current occupancy level in Halifax is 42 percent and the projected post-pandemic occupancy is identical.
Fisheries’ projected post-pandemic occupancy is identical to its current occupancy for all of its offices except Nanaimo and Victoria in British Columbia, which it says will increase from 15 to 20 percent.
For the cities with Fisheries’ offices with an occupancy of 200 or more, all had a current occupancy rate of over 74 percent.
One agency which could not rely on remote work as much as others due to its mandate requiring a secure infrastructure is the Communications Security Establishment, Canada’s electronic spying organization.
It says that there are roughly 3,000 workstations at its Edward Drake Building in Ottawa, with all but a few having been assigned.
“On average, more than 60% of workstations are used on normal workdays,” it said.
Missing Data
The Inquiry response does not provide a full picture, with some of the departments owning the largest number of buildings not providing any numbers.That’s the case for National Defence, which said it owns approximately 2,318 buildings but does not track information related to maximum, current or projected occupancy.
Public Service and Procurement Canada (PSPC) also owns hundreds of buildings which are occupied by other departments and agencies.
It says in its response that information requested is not being tracked.
“PSPC concluded that producing and validating a comprehensive response to this question would require a manual collection of information that is not possible in the time allotted and could lead to the disclosure of incomplete or misleading information.”
Environment Canada (ECCC) also said it couldn’t provide current occupancy levels.
Return to the Office
President of the Treasury Board Mona Fortier announced on Dec. 15 that public servants would have to spend more time at the office from March 31, in order to bring more “consistency in how hybrid work is applied across the federal government,” she said.Fortier said employees would need to go to the office at least two to three days a week.
She didn’t address previous suggestions that the federal government could get rid of office spaces to save on costs.
A briefing note from PSPC reported on by Blacklock’s in August claimed that $1.3 billion a year could be saved by cutting office space by 40 percent, and estimated that 230,000 employees were working remotely.
“Infrastructure is the second largest expense to the Government of Canada after salary expenses,” said the briefing note “Evolution Of The Office Portfolio.”
“By enabling a hybrid model of work the department has an opportunity to optimize and modernize the portfolio (and) transform the public service.”
Fortier did say that things would not be going back to the “way things used to be.”
“We’re reimagining our workplace and we’re going to continue to improve our approach so that we can best serve Canadians,” she said.
