La Bottega owner Pat Nicastro stocks items in his downtown Ottawa store on Jan. 15. Federal public servants have long been reliable customers for the Byward Market business, but remote and hybrid work changed that.Dave Chan/The Globe and Mail
Federal public servants used to be a sure thing for Pat Nicastro’s fine-food shop in Ottawa’s Byward Market.
He used to be able to count on a lot of them who work in nearby offices to come in for lunch, a group that was a sizable part of the customer mix that has sustained La Bottega for about 30 years.
But the pandemic sent many home to work and now most are in the office just three days a week. “Before, you had the benefit of thousands of workers working in the area [every day],” Mr. Nicastro said.
Public servants remain a key part of the Ottawa economy, and hybrid working arrangements have taken a toll on downtown businesses. The situation has been made worse after cuts to staffing levels that mean there are fewer potential customers.
Remote work option ending for tens of thousands of public, private sector workers in 2026
Many of those business owners hoping workers will be back in the office more days a weeks are taking note of remarks that Prime Minister Mark Carney – an Ottawa MP – made to the city’s board of trade at a forum last month attended by about 1,100 people.
During a fireside chat conversation with Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe, Mr. Carney acknowledged the considerable interest from the business community on the subject of hybrid working for public servants.
The Prime Minister said his government will be engaging with public-sector unions on the topic. “We will come to a sharper view on it over the course of the next several weeks,” Mr. Carney said.
He said workers will be required to be in the office more frequently, depending on their level of seniority, their role and what he described as “capacity” – referring to the reduced amount of office space after cutbacks during the pandemic.
However, unions representing public-sector workers have pushed back on calls for workers to be in the office more often.
Sharon DeSousa, the national president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, said in a statement that “Prime Minister Carney’s commitment to make federal workers spend more time in offices is severely out of touch with what’s best for workers and taxpayers.”
Pedestrians make their way along Sparks Street in Ottawa in November, 2021. Unions representing public servants have pushed back on calls for them to come into the office more often.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
According to Statistics Canada, there were 153,979 federal public servants in the National Capital Region that consists of Ottawa and the adjacent city of Gatineau in 2025. By comparison, there were 48,886 in Ontario outside the NCR, 18,880 in Alberta and 28,901 in British Columbia.
Mr. Carney’s comments were welcomed by Anish Mehra, the owner of Ottawa’s East India Restaurant, who attended the event.
“The crowd he was speaking to was a lot of businesspeople. So for a lot of people in the room, the vibe was very much, ‘Great. This sounds good,’” Mr. Mehra said in an interview.
Before the pandemic, he said, federal workers accounted for 50 to 60 per cent of his lunchtime crowd, with additional business from public servants coming in after work. He figures that the federal customer base is down to about 20 or 30 per cent of its previous level, he added.
He said he is sympathetic to federal workers working remotely. “I think the general sense of the community for the core would be, ‘We understand their positions.’” Still, he said, “we think it would make more sense to have people back to work a little bit more.’”
Sueling Ching, president and chief executive officer of the Ottawa Board of Trade, said the downtown core contributes to the health of the entire city, representing about 20 per cent of the city’s tax base.
“Obviously I care about business all across the city, but we also have to be pretty strategic about where we place our focus for the long-term gain of everyone,” she said.
“I’m not saying, ‘Move everybody downtown tomorrow’ or whatever. I’m saying we all do need to be focused on the economic recovery of the city core.”
In 2024, the Board of Trade released a report that made the case for Ottawa transforming the city core toward a downtown that does not rely as much on the federal work force.
“The predominance of federal buildings – and the workers who use them – was for years one of our greatest assets, but is now one of our most challenging liabilities,” the report said.
“We’ve acknowledged our pre-COVID vulnerability in being too reliant on one dominant employment sector, but the pandemic accelerated the need for diversification of our downtown economy.”
Still, Ms. Ching said some certainty from the federal government with regard to its remote working policy might prompt the private sector to hire workers or even to expand operations.
“The outcome that we want is certainty,” she said.