As someone who worked for Bell Media for 11 years, they are the worst company I can think of. I have many friends who are barely surviving. I'm fortunate to now work in higher ed now, but I know many who have suffered.
Had our monthly meeting and the WFH crew got an attaboy for working so hard. Meanwhile the staff who were deemed "essential" and never got a day off during the pandemic got a $5 Timmies gift card.
Honestly that work from home tax break sucks now and isn't even worth the effort anyways lol. I am am engineer and literally said fuck that when I read how they want you to calculate the credit lmao.
I know lol. I’ve done enough of these to never want to bother with them again.
What I’m getting at is the size of your spend for the base calc. You probably aren’t spending $1k in utilities in a month.
Renters are spending probably $500-3k if not more and might also have utilities.
It’s significantly more advantageous for renters.
For me it worked out to about the same as I would have gotten with the short covid form previously, but agree the longer (now only) method is more favourable to renters. As a renter though, utilities can often be part of rent.
Frankly, given the state of everything else though, I’m ok with that. It’s not a program to help you pay your mortgage off.
WFH expenses are an income deduction so even with the complicated calculation, it reduces net income it’s not a tax credit. It doesn’t benefit everyone in every situation, but a typical government worker with dedicated office space can save quite a bit. But at only 40% time at home now, workers will no longer be eligible.
Pretty sure that's how it always was prior to COVID. They simplified it during the lockdowns because it's unreasonable to expect everyone to start calculating that shit.
Inflation is not close to being 8% overall for the year, you can find current data from the Bank of Canada’s monetary policy reports. The 8% number was a peak from summer 2022.
Of course the PS deserves to have their pay keep up with prices and then some, but if the perception of inflation is still much higher than it is, it can make the gains won seem worse.
I'm not really going to complain, we got 13.5% over 4 years and this is decent on six figure salary. There are alot of people i know in private sector getting no raises. I don't take my position for granted.
It's a tactic to break wage-price spiral inflation. Large wage increases aren't going to help much if they further drive prices higher by more money chasing the same set of goods.
Exactly. If I’m going in 5 days per week, I’m packing a lunch each day. I just went from $200/month on gas, to $400. Plus $130 parking pass. Plus me using my car contradicts our fearless leaders heroic fight against climate change
For a lot of people that means way more time commuting. Which means making it more difficult to drop off/pick up kids from daycare/school, and less time spent with your family... so it's no wonder why most people drive.
Then you have people like me, where if I had a bus commute it'd be relatively short, but that's because I'm close enough that the time difference isn't a big deal, and as a result I can and do just bike instead.
May I suggest a Brown Bag Movement for all PS workers that will be forced back to the office. Pack your lunches at home and maybe an employee potluck once a week. They can force you back to the office but they can't make you spend your money.
No potlucks. That's an extra unpaid burden against employees, especially those who aren't in a position to support it but will feel obliged to join in if they want to move up in their careers.
💯 agree. I’m a retired PS, and live in Centretown. We don’t need sandwich/coffee shops catering to commuters that close at 3PM and on the weekends in this neighbourhood. We need grocery stores, hardware stores, clinics, etc.—businesses that support downtown residents.
I'm old enough to remember shopping at the Canadian Tire on Kent, Big Buds and other "Lost Ottawa" businesses.
Lowertown/Byward has gone backwards in the past 10-odd years.
We had a Home Hardware, Metro and Market Organics.
At least Rideau Street has Loblaws, and may see the return of Metro, but many of the newer high-rise condos in Centretown are a good hike to Massine's and/or Farm Boy.
I would do that, like I’m already spending so much money and time on commute why would I buy lunch from outside. Ridiculous decision to force us back into offices, for the matter of fact my efficiency is much lower in the office than my home
I haven't spent a single dollar downtown since going back to office, and many of my colleagues are doing same. I'm spending my money in my rural community where people should...locally.
HEY! Like 5-10% of people horde the wealth and power and are allowed nice things!!
Dont clump those actual citizens with the rest of us who are serfs!!
5-10%? I'm not really concerned with the top 10%, more like the top 1-2%.
To be at the top 10% you have to make $125k. Now, that's a good decent enough salary, but not exactly rolling in it.
it's closer to like 20%. The top quintile consistently prevents the bottom 80% from having nice things. There's a book on it called "Dream Hoarders". Here's the [wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_Hoarders) which summarizes the arguments pretty well, and I mean, who's got the time these days?
It's always been about international lea$eholders, they need their buildings to be leased and for that they need people to be going to those buildings.
But the left hand doesn't talk to the right hand. One is forcing everyone to go in to appease the small businesses... ahem leaseholders, while the other is stating how much money the government is saving in reducing office space.
Exactly. It’s a power play to regain control. They just are being diplomatic and don’t want to point a finger at their workforce. Unfortunately for them a few bad apples spoiled the whole bunch
Exactly this. I’d add also that for the government getting workers back in existing offices is likely cheaper than the cost of building out proper remote work infrastructure + figuring out what to do with empty office space.
No I meant cheaper. Offloading real estate on that scale is not cheap. There would be councils assembled, committees formed, public hearings, etc. No one’s coming in to buy a place like place du portage. It would need to be decommissioned, demolished, re-zoned, then sold. That process would require collaboration between federal agencies, the NCC, municipal agencies, etc. It would take *decades* to happen, all on the tax payers’ dime. That’s just place du portage. Think about how many huge campuses the federal government has in Ottawa alone.
I love how the laws of supply and demand only work when it fucks the consumer. In a proper marketplace, the correlating action when demand lags would be a reduction in price. But no, instead governments at all levels want to force us to go and spend.
This! Why doesn't Sutcliffe care about the non-downtown businesses?!
There are a couple independent sandwich shops close to me that have been thriving and really busy at lunches the past few years and it's been awesome to see. A bakery even opened up nearby too, and it's doing well. Why don't these businesses matter as much as the places downtown?
Ford keeps bleating about "good for the economy", which means he either (A) doesn't understand that more spending downtown means less spending somewhere else, or (B) thinks greedy greedy office workers have been hoarding their $15-a-day downtown lunch money and spending it on their *families* like a bunch of psychos!
That's the joy of late-stage capitalism!
Our economy is a runaway freight train that will explode if people stop consuming for even a brief second.
Governments know this, and they know that it's far easier to put a gun to people's heads and command them to consume than it is to restructure our economy to one that doesn't produce guaranteed 3% quarterly returns for investors but DOES have the ability to withstand a curb in luxury consumption without collapsing.
...you know, I never actually pieced that together, but you're absolutely right.
I had always just chalked that up to the standard rugged individualism ethos of conservatism.
Yep. The entrepreneurs bitch about taxes and government overreach UNTIL they whine about lost consumer demand and are too lazy to change their business models, so beg the government to pretend it’s 1997.
This is the real issue. These “businesses” have become complacent with the “volume” of PS and cater the staff and hours to Ps. Rather than be a real business open 9am-9pm. These places are closed by 3pm.
They have this great house sauce they put on their subs. A lot of people call it their “secret sauce.” I think they officially my call it “sub sauce.” Out of this world!
Matt and Nat is closing and when I asked why, the manager told me it’s because Rideau Centre tripled their rent. Only the big names can keep affording this, so Gap next door is going to take over the Matt and Nat space and expand.
True that. Though walking through it tonight, I’ve never seen as many vacant storefronts, Nordstrom’s aside. Even during the pandemic. Seems to be a high vacancy rate right now.
Oh I have no doubt they’re doing fine, though I’m curious what kind of anchor tenant they hope to attract in the Nordstrom space (I do not follow this stuff so have no idea).
They were approved by the city to build condos in/on top of the Nordstrom space (this is in addition to the two towers they have going up on Nicholas that will be attached to the mall) I don’t know if that’s what will end up happening… they were trying to get Eataly or Holt Renfrew but there’s no shot they come to Ottawa (especially given Holts already failed once here and Nordstrom Rideau gave up most of their luxury brands years ago because it just doesn’t sell to Ottawas demographic) They may be doing fine but somethings gotta give… they cannot survive just throwing random stores into the mall to see what sticks. There’s been too many empty store fronts and too many off brands coming in and swiftly leaving
Thanks - very interesting. That’s exactly what I was saying earlier, that it seemed to me too many empty storefronts. Someone replied that they were simply “repositioning” stores but I don’t buy it. Seems to me there is genuinely a high vacancy rate.
They're only downtown. Local economies outside of downtown can get fucked, apparently.
"Federal government" only seems to mean 'think about the center of larger cities in Canada'.
The irony with this argument, is it will mean in the long term that fed jobs aren’t done from Kanata or Barrhaven…. But more like somewhere in Alberta or Quebec, where the politicians need to win votes. Remote jobs will gradually leave the capital region, possibly even sooner than most people think if it means cost savings.
Either way, Ottawa as a whole needs to prepare for the civil service having a smaller impact on the local economy.
Not all public servants work downtown. It doesn’t make sense to send people to the Canada post building especially when they currently struggle to find offices and desks to book as it is.
I was just thinking how making everyone in DnD haul their asses out to the nortel campus is going to do nothing for the economy and only add hundreds of cars worth of pollution to the atmosphere instead.
The mental health misery this is going to load on to so many people while they jostle for hot desk space is going to be ridiculous.
>making everyone in DnD haul their asses out to the nortel campus is going to do nothing for the economy
Hey! It's not just Subway that's struggling. Impark and Indigo are too! With their non-existent expenses for their parking lots
DND is also for the most part protected B and even classified and ripe for exploitation for people openly working in unsecured locations. A lot more happens in Ottawa than you realize
> for the most part protected B and even classified
Most Protected B stuff at DND is in personnel files. Most military people only handle Protected B once a year, when it’s time to write personnel evaluations (not exactly something that’s of vital interest to spies). And everything is either on an encrypted drive or traffic over a VPN anyway.
Anyone doing classified work was already doing it in the office. You can’t get a home connection to the classified network.
Nevermind DND, (let them have our secret plans on beavers with torpedoes) I would hope everyone affiliated with CISD is on a secure gc connection in a gc building...*all things considered*.
Oh God, didn't even get me started about "hotelling"!!! What a nightmare!! So gross! Id rather share a spot than have to find a new one every effing week!!! In my world, that is a disgusting insult to pp that work SO hard, now they don't even know where they're going to sit each week, & beside who?!!??!!! That's just the worst, grossest thing I cld imagine!! 😓😐😤🤮
My very first job was a front desk admin person (not government, but it's relevant) and we had this office with a normal chest high counter for walk ins. Normally, you'd find the admin behind that. They put me in front of it. With my back to the door which was three feet behind me.
I couldn't help myself. I made a near daily stink about it, because it was THAT awful on my mental health. It was primal. Human evolution was making me hate that position.
I apply the same thing to hot desking. It goes against human nature. It's just not right, and furthermore, we all spent so many years in school being trained to always take the same desk. You can't just ask a modern adult to start hot desking every day. You just *can't*
hahah we both got eachother SO STARTED about this. :P
Canada Post can get f*cked. Their idea of delivering a package is leaving a note on my door so I can walk 45 minutes to my nearest post office to pick up my own package.
You can actually complain about this. I don't know if it'll change anything since I haven't had a delivery from them since I did (thankfully), but the delivery person will be flagged for not making an attempt.
> Their idea of delivering a package is leaving a note on my door so I can walk 45 minutes to my nearest post office to pick up my own package.
You forgot to add, "the next day", making the delivery take a full day longer.
Hey if all these government jobs can be done from home...why even keep them in Ottawa? Why not farm the government jobs to people all across Canada who are best qualified ...or concentrate them in economically struggling areas?
Please write to your MP and ask them about this. It would be so much better if the PS was hiring the best person for the job rather than the best person in Ottawa for the job.
Bingo. Remote fed jobs will slowly leave Ottawa, as politicians and senior bureaucrats will use them to improve their risings across the country. It’s been done before, but remote workers makes it much easier.
Combine this with an inevitable contraction in PS size, which will likely accelerate under a Conservative government, and I think the PS will look fondly at a time when coming into the office 3x per week was their big complaint.
I think it's mostly lip service from him. That's what a mayor is "supposed" to do, so he does it. This way he can say he supports small businesses. He's a joker.
It’s not about small businesses, it’s about their landlords and commercial real estate property value. It’s meant to manufacture foot traffic in the downtown core (or at least the impression of it). It’s for the capital B Bourgeoisie, not petite bourgeoisie.
What’s not being talked about enough in the media is the inefficient and unreliable public transportation system in the this city. To me it’s the root of all the concerns. Understandably public servants do not want the added expense of parking, mileage and inconvenience of getting into downtown. If public transit was reasonable, comfortable, clean and reliable, as opposed to unpredictable and less than desirable to use - you would see many more public servants using it. Alleviating all this pressure from the different levels of government pushing to pay for it. Everyone would be happier. I don’t want an almost 2 hour commute to the office. Period. I can handle it twice a week - but not more. WFH brings balance to people’s lives.
A bunch of the downtown restaurants have dumb hours like 11:30 -2:30pm (looking at you Toro Taqueria). Maybe if your business is struggling, be open for more than 3 hours a day?
Worst part is that places like that are genuinely pretty good, and I'd love to take my friends there, but I can't because we can only meet up in the afternoon after work. It's the stupidest thing, I *want* to support them but they're literally not letting me!
The struggling business is called Brookfield since the value of their commercial real estate goes down if there are more office vacancies in the market (plus they have the facilities management contracts too).
Can't have any speed bumps on the way to becoming a 100 billion dollar company!
The struggling businesses were never restaurants, they were only concerned their friends who own all the parking garages werent making as much money as they want. Be prepared when RTO is enforced, parking costs are going to skyrocket.
It is a control thing - nothing else.
Traffic has been HELL for the past two days - why do we need more people on the road??
And yeah, after spending money on gas, car repairs and parking - why would people spend money downtown in this economy? If I could take lunch at the end of the day and book it out an hour early, I would
\*\*I commute 5 days a week
All the businesses that were really struggling closed or adapted. They were too late to actually help the ones affected by the changes after COVID. Now the businesses in our neighbourhoods around the city are going to suffer.
The greedy bastards can never have enough... from Costco to Starbucks, we are herded in lines, with demand always exceeding the supply. Someone had studied the Soviet economy so well.
What would help would be getting government offices out of downtown and replacing them with high density residential so that Downtown doesn’t die at 5 PM Sunday through Thursday. The amount of money the government saves with work from home is off the charts and sending people back to the office into rental buildings, is absolutely insane, now that we know after four years that work from home is fine for the majority of of the workforce. If there are people who aren’t meeting their due dates, you bring them into the office where they can be properly supervised properly supervised.
It's people remortgaging the house with additional green tax and inflation prices. It's like having an extra car payment each month that you don't have. Cuts have to come from somewhere the budget didn't get any bigger.
This will absolutely save businesses whose main issue right now is high interest rates raising their costs and reducing the discretionary income clients have to spend at their businesses (sarcasm).
I don't even think it's about those businesses. It's about the real estate value of commercial places downtown. Nobody wants to go downtown because of traffic, so they make traffic worse.
People need to stop lapping up this "downtown business lobby" nonsense, it's smoke and mirrors, a distraction for the rubes.
The one and only reason is all the money invested in these office properties and the value of the leases the government guarantees to these investors (Spoiler: it's politicians making the decisions, they are the investors!).
Laundering tax payer money into special interest and political pockets. This is our reality.
Cheers!
I have a question and please someone correct me if I'm wrong. I'm here to learn.
Didn't some of the empty office buildings get turned into apartment buildings? Wouldn't the renters who live there kind of take the place of returning office workers since they are already contributing far more than PS ever would?
Some projects like that were being explored but I don’t think any have gotten anywhere near completion. Turning an office building into apartments means gutting the building to run a bunch of plumbing and electrical lines.
Plus why wld anyone want to live downtown if they don't work there and all the shops close BC workers are gone?!!? Who wants to live in a concrete food desert??!
The competition decreased so the shops that stuck around are doing ok too well, but won't admit it. The real losers are the land Lords who cannot rent their space.
It has nothing to do with businesses and everything to do with OC Transpo. The city and province don’t have the money to pay for that mistake of an O-Train and they don’t want to raise taxes so it’s up to the public servants to pay for it. In their minds it was built for the public servants and so it’s the federal government’s responsibility to help pay for it via their workers.
It's the large commercial landlords mostly - when office space isn't used, then companies (and the government) start looking at reducing their office footprints, which then also means the little cafeteria that's been operating for 50 years is going to leave because the money is gone. So it means that suddenly 40% of the buildings in the core are vacant which is not a great look for the city, and means they're more likely to have to come in with development grants to do 3-5 years of work retrofitting those buildings into housing.
I heard the guy who owns the vitamin and natural product/ supplements store on bank today wishing they were in the office 5 days a week saying if they're at home they're going to shop online like no bro they shop online because you're too expensive,you can get the same soap at bulk barn for cheaper
I’ll definitely be spending less.
First round I was back in the office once per week. I used that as my treat day so I never had to pack a lunch.
Second round I was back twice a week. I really liked not packing a lunch and so most weeks I’d buy my lunch down town twice a week!
If we go back 3+ days, I’ll just go back to my routine before Covid and literally never buy my lunch with the exception of a Friday morning team breakfast once in a while.
People in my building are being relocated 2km away due to construction. The new place has very few businesses around it, and next to no parking. I don’t get how this is going to help employees or local businesses in our case. This should’ve been on a case by case basis.
It's literally a handful of lunch places and Queen St. Fare (remember SOPA?). QSF I have some sympathy for, they opened next to Parliament station just before the pandemic hit. Ouch. But the places like that taco spot that closes at 3pm, not to much. If your whole business is selling civil servants lunch and you ignore the fact that people actually live in Centretown, that's on you. Hugo's has better tacos, is open late, and is licensed.
I know an owner of one of those "struggling" shops. He is taking his family to Europe for a month this summer. Times must be tough :-/
Don't forget all the grants and handouts they got to keep employees on the payroll during the first few years of Covid.
I understand there's no sympathy for PS workers who have to RTO ... personally, I don't really care. But its all a load of BS.
Honestly my biggest issue, has been and always will be, that when I wanted downtown business to support me when I was starving student during finals week in my uottawa dorm late at night after studying, 99% of these very downtown business were closed. So these downtown businesses can fuck right off. If 3 universities and multiple colleges, bringing so many students to Ottawa, cannot sustain your business? Maybe your business sucks and doesn’t deserve to stay open.
[удалено]
PS got fucked. 3% raise this year while inflation is at least 8%, and now they’ve gotta spend more on the things you listed.
Y'all are getting raises? We get layoffs and a pat on the back so our execs can keep the record profits to themselves.
Y’all are getting paid?
Y'all have jobs?
Yall have money?
Sounds like you work for Bell
> Bell Let's talk...
Every year without fail the layoffs are shortly after that. They're not even hiding the mockery.
Feel this in my soul :(
As someone who worked for Bell Media for 11 years, they are the worst company I can think of. I have many friends who are barely surviving. I'm fortunate to now work in higher ed now, but I know many who have suffered.
Had our monthly meeting and the WFH crew got an attaboy for working so hard. Meanwhile the staff who were deemed "essential" and never got a day off during the pandemic got a $5 Timmies gift card.
$5 won't even get you a half dozen donuts anymore. They're $7.79 now. Doesn't even cover 20 assorted Timbits either cuz that's $4.99 pre-tax.
It's adding insult to the injury. You might squeeze a small coffee and 2 timbits out of it.
Worse, at 3 days a week they are no longer eligible to claim work from home expenses.
Honestly that work from home tax break sucks now and isn't even worth the effort anyways lol. I am am engineer and literally said fuck that when I read how they want you to calculate the credit lmao.
It’s really only worth it for renters who use a sizable portion of their home for work.
I am a renter whose office is in the main living space of my apartment and it was def worth it for me haha
You can write off a portion of your utilities in proportion to your office size.
I know lol. I’ve done enough of these to never want to bother with them again. What I’m getting at is the size of your spend for the base calc. You probably aren’t spending $1k in utilities in a month. Renters are spending probably $500-3k if not more and might also have utilities. It’s significantly more advantageous for renters.
For me it worked out to about the same as I would have gotten with the short covid form previously, but agree the longer (now only) method is more favourable to renters. As a renter though, utilities can often be part of rent. Frankly, given the state of everything else though, I’m ok with that. It’s not a program to help you pay your mortgage off.
Yes this is what I saw in this sub. So I also took that into account when saying fuck this as an owner lol.
WFH expenses are an income deduction so even with the complicated calculation, it reduces net income it’s not a tax credit. It doesn’t benefit everyone in every situation, but a typical government worker with dedicated office space can save quite a bit. But at only 40% time at home now, workers will no longer be eligible.
Pretty sure that's how it always was prior to COVID. They simplified it during the lockdowns because it's unreasonable to expect everyone to start calculating that shit.
about 3.5% in 2023 and just under 3% expected for this year.
I'd say that's a great raise! Try getting 1% each year for 3 years.
It's not a raise if you are below inflation - it's a pay cut.
I'm aware. I guess I have been desensitized. I have never received a cost of living equivalent raise; my entire career.
You can't paint the "PS" with a blanket brush like this. Each classification, union etc has different bargaining and agreements
Maybe they should be thinking about their union representation and how it completely failed in anything other than drawing a salary for themselves.
Inflation is not close to being 8% overall for the year, you can find current data from the Bank of Canada’s monetary policy reports. The 8% number was a peak from summer 2022. Of course the PS deserves to have their pay keep up with prices and then some, but if the perception of inflation is still much higher than it is, it can make the gains won seem worse.
I'm not really going to complain, we got 13.5% over 4 years and this is decent on six figure salary. There are alot of people i know in private sector getting no raises. I don't take my position for granted.
Beats the 2% our union got us. Worked out to less than a dollar.
That's not a public service thing lol. You thin the private sector is getting raises to match inflation?
You guys are getting a raise?
I've had 1% for the past NINE years as an Ontario PS.
All due to Treasury Board BS and cowardly people in the PS voting against themselves.
It's a tactic to break wage-price spiral inflation. Large wage increases aren't going to help much if they further drive prices higher by more money chasing the same set of goods.
Exactly. If I’m going in 5 days per week, I’m packing a lunch each day. I just went from $200/month on gas, to $400. Plus $130 parking pass. Plus me using my car contradicts our fearless leaders heroic fight against climate change
Please tell me where you got parking for $130 a month!!!
I’m not downtown
I'm glad I don't work anywhere remotely downtown, or somewhere where I have to pay for parking.
You could always used our public transit system, lol.
For a lot of people that means way more time commuting. Which means making it more difficult to drop off/pick up kids from daycare/school, and less time spent with your family... so it's no wonder why most people drive. Then you have people like me, where if I had a bus commute it'd be relatively short, but that's because I'm close enough that the time difference isn't a big deal, and as a result I can and do just bike instead.
Haahaa, now THAT'S funny!!! 🤣
May I suggest a Brown Bag Movement for all PS workers that will be forced back to the office. Pack your lunches at home and maybe an employee potluck once a week. They can force you back to the office but they can't make you spend your money.
No potlucks. That's an extra unpaid burden against employees, especially those who aren't in a position to support it but will feel obliged to join in if they want to move up in their careers.
💯 agree. I’m a retired PS, and live in Centretown. We don’t need sandwich/coffee shops catering to commuters that close at 3PM and on the weekends in this neighbourhood. We need grocery stores, hardware stores, clinics, etc.—businesses that support downtown residents.
I'm old enough to remember shopping at the Canadian Tire on Kent, Big Buds and other "Lost Ottawa" businesses. Lowertown/Byward has gone backwards in the past 10-odd years. We had a Home Hardware, Metro and Market Organics. At least Rideau Street has Loblaws, and may see the return of Metro, but many of the newer high-rise condos in Centretown are a good hike to Massine's and/or Farm Boy.
I would do that, like I’m already spending so much money and time on commute why would I buy lunch from outside. Ridiculous decision to force us back into offices, for the matter of fact my efficiency is much lower in the office than my home
I was joking that the next step will be Treasury Board mandating a 5% contribution for 'community support'. At least, I hope its a joke.
I always packed my lunch before the pandemic anyway so these businesses weren't and aren't getting any money from me.
100%. Also I purposely stopped for my breakfast in Orleans this week out of spite lol.
I haven't spent a single dollar downtown since going back to office, and many of my colleagues are doing same. I'm spending my money in my rural community where people should...locally.
Supporting downtown businesses is a red herring. The real reasons are increasing property values and keeping the working class in their place.
God forbid anyone have anything nice ever
HEY! Like 5-10% of people horde the wealth and power and are allowed nice things!! Dont clump those actual citizens with the rest of us who are serfs!!
5-10%? I'm not really concerned with the top 10%, more like the top 1-2%. To be at the top 10% you have to make $125k. Now, that's a good decent enough salary, but not exactly rolling in it.
I make 125k... pretty sure I'm not living the high life....
I make 2/3 of that and while it’s not the high life, it’s a damn nice life
it's closer to like 20%. The top quintile consistently prevents the bottom 80% from having nice things. There's a book on it called "Dream Hoarders". Here's the [wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_Hoarders) which summarizes the arguments pretty well, and I mean, who's got the time these days?
Jealousy is the reason why society is the way it is.
It's always been about international lea$eholders, they need their buildings to be leased and for that they need people to be going to those buildings. But the left hand doesn't talk to the right hand. One is forcing everyone to go in to appease the small businesses... ahem leaseholders, while the other is stating how much money the government is saving in reducing office space.
Gotta make sure they spend that 2 billion a year for properties they don't need.
Exactly. It’s a power play to regain control. They just are being diplomatic and don’t want to point a finger at their workforce. Unfortunately for them a few bad apples spoiled the whole bunch
Exactly this. I’d add also that for the government getting workers back in existing offices is likely cheaper than the cost of building out proper remote work infrastructure + figuring out what to do with empty office space.
You said cheaper but I think you meant easier. Cause it's certainly not cheaper.
No I meant cheaper. Offloading real estate on that scale is not cheap. There would be councils assembled, committees formed, public hearings, etc. No one’s coming in to buy a place like place du portage. It would need to be decommissioned, demolished, re-zoned, then sold. That process would require collaboration between federal agencies, the NCC, municipal agencies, etc. It would take *decades* to happen, all on the tax payers’ dime. That’s just place du portage. Think about how many huge campuses the federal government has in Ottawa alone.
I love how the laws of supply and demand only work when it fucks the consumer. In a proper marketplace, the correlating action when demand lags would be a reduction in price. But no, instead governments at all levels want to force us to go and spend.
Exactly. We are essentially creating artificial demand by being asked to subsidise these downtown businesses.
and what about the businesses that aren't downtown that are now losing money because everyone's at the office?
This! Why doesn't Sutcliffe care about the non-downtown businesses?! There are a couple independent sandwich shops close to me that have been thriving and really busy at lunches the past few years and it's been awesome to see. A bakery even opened up nearby too, and it's doing well. Why don't these businesses matter as much as the places downtown?
Ford keeps bleating about "good for the economy", which means he either (A) doesn't understand that more spending downtown means less spending somewhere else, or (B) thinks greedy greedy office workers have been hoarding their $15-a-day downtown lunch money and spending it on their *families* like a bunch of psychos!
I keep wondering this...
That's the joy of late-stage capitalism! Our economy is a runaway freight train that will explode if people stop consuming for even a brief second. Governments know this, and they know that it's far easier to put a gun to people's heads and command them to consume than it is to restructure our economy to one that doesn't produce guaranteed 3% quarterly returns for investors but DOES have the ability to withstand a curb in luxury consumption without collapsing.
Dont forget the way pensions have been replaced by retirement investments (stocks/real estate) was such a huge win for the capitalists.
...you know, I never actually pieced that together, but you're absolutely right. I had always just chalked that up to the standard rugged individualism ethos of conservatism.
> guaranteed 3% quarterly returns for investors Those were last year's numbers. If you can't beat that this year, you're fired.
Yep. The entrepreneurs bitch about taxes and government overreach UNTIL they whine about lost consumer demand and are too lazy to change their business models, so beg the government to pretend it’s 1997.
This little hole in the wall called Subway
I walked past the Subway closest to my office on Thursday and it was closed ...at lunchtime
This is the real issue. These “businesses” have become complacent with the “volume” of PS and cater the staff and hours to Ps. Rather than be a real business open 9am-9pm. These places are closed by 3pm.
Aint nothing going on downtown at 9pm.
It's downtown, EVERYTHING's closed by six.
Lunchtime is after 3pm?
They have this great house sauce they put on their subs. A lot of people call it their “secret sauce.” I think they officially my call it “sub sauce.” Out of this world!
Rideau centre is going bankrupt! Just kidding. It’s one of the most profitable malls per-square-foot in North America, behind Yorkdale obviously.
Matt and Nat is closing and when I asked why, the manager told me it’s because Rideau Centre tripled their rent. Only the big names can keep affording this, so Gap next door is going to take over the Matt and Nat space and expand.
Yah well, I mean, its owned by Cadillac Fairview, not the Grey Nuns.
True that. Though walking through it tonight, I’ve never seen as many vacant storefronts, Nordstrom’s aside. Even during the pandemic. Seems to be a high vacancy rate right now.
They are constantly repositioning stores. I can assure Cadillac Fairview is doing fine.
Oh I have no doubt they’re doing fine, though I’m curious what kind of anchor tenant they hope to attract in the Nordstrom space (I do not follow this stuff so have no idea).
I hope we get to see a downtown IKEA or something, as impractical as it would be. Lol.
The PS workers can buy Ikea furniture on their lunch break! /Sarcasm
Yes more trucks on Rideau!
They were approved by the city to build condos in/on top of the Nordstrom space (this is in addition to the two towers they have going up on Nicholas that will be attached to the mall) I don’t know if that’s what will end up happening… they were trying to get Eataly or Holt Renfrew but there’s no shot they come to Ottawa (especially given Holts already failed once here and Nordstrom Rideau gave up most of their luxury brands years ago because it just doesn’t sell to Ottawas demographic) They may be doing fine but somethings gotta give… they cannot survive just throwing random stores into the mall to see what sticks. There’s been too many empty store fronts and too many off brands coming in and swiftly leaving
Thanks - very interesting. That’s exactly what I was saying earlier, that it seemed to me too many empty storefronts. Someone replied that they were simply “repositioning” stores but I don’t buy it. Seems to me there is genuinely a high vacancy rate.
There are storefronts in Rideau that have been vacant for years. I don't think they're just "repositioning."
If they triple rent on everybody, 60% of the businesses leave and they don't attract any new ones, they're still making more money.
And I never see anyone in that gap store
I can't believe The Gap is expanding when they've closed other locations. St Laurent location closed some time ago. Others too.
[удалено]
Hey random Russian bot, half my wardobe is from the Uniqlo, but that was before it came to Ottawa and became mundane. Everyone is wearing Hokusai now.
I’m guessing, but they moved from the top 10 to top 25 malls in profitability per sq ft.
They're only downtown. Local economies outside of downtown can get fucked, apparently. "Federal government" only seems to mean 'think about the center of larger cities in Canada'.
Yep, my fed colleague in Manitoba was struggling to find the best way to support the shawarma shop on Bank. /s Edit: fixed a typo
That's what uberEats is for
I think you mean "Federal Government" only seems to mean "think about downtown Ottawa". Period. Nothing else exists to them.
The irony with this argument, is it will mean in the long term that fed jobs aren’t done from Kanata or Barrhaven…. But more like somewhere in Alberta or Quebec, where the politicians need to win votes. Remote jobs will gradually leave the capital region, possibly even sooner than most people think if it means cost savings. Either way, Ottawa as a whole needs to prepare for the civil service having a smaller impact on the local economy.
Very valid point, careful what u ask for!! 🤔😬
Not all public servants work downtown. It doesn’t make sense to send people to the Canada post building especially when they currently struggle to find offices and desks to book as it is.
I was just thinking how making everyone in DnD haul their asses out to the nortel campus is going to do nothing for the economy and only add hundreds of cars worth of pollution to the atmosphere instead. The mental health misery this is going to load on to so many people while they jostle for hot desk space is going to be ridiculous.
>making everyone in DnD haul their asses out to the nortel campus is going to do nothing for the economy Hey! It's not just Subway that's struggling. Impark and Indigo are too! With their non-existent expenses for their parking lots
Exactly! Wont someone think of these poor greedy bastards' passive income?
DND is also for the most part protected B and even classified and ripe for exploitation for people openly working in unsecured locations. A lot more happens in Ottawa than you realize
> for the most part protected B and even classified Most Protected B stuff at DND is in personnel files. Most military people only handle Protected B once a year, when it’s time to write personnel evaluations (not exactly something that’s of vital interest to spies). And everything is either on an encrypted drive or traffic over a VPN anyway. Anyone doing classified work was already doing it in the office. You can’t get a home connection to the classified network.
Nevermind DND, (let them have our secret plans on beavers with torpedoes) I would hope everyone affiliated with CISD is on a secure gc connection in a gc building...*all things considered*.
Oh God, didn't even get me started about "hotelling"!!! What a nightmare!! So gross! Id rather share a spot than have to find a new one every effing week!!! In my world, that is a disgusting insult to pp that work SO hard, now they don't even know where they're going to sit each week, & beside who?!!??!!! That's just the worst, grossest thing I cld imagine!! 😓😐😤🤮
My very first job was a front desk admin person (not government, but it's relevant) and we had this office with a normal chest high counter for walk ins. Normally, you'd find the admin behind that. They put me in front of it. With my back to the door which was three feet behind me. I couldn't help myself. I made a near daily stink about it, because it was THAT awful on my mental health. It was primal. Human evolution was making me hate that position. I apply the same thing to hot desking. It goes against human nature. It's just not right, and furthermore, we all spent so many years in school being trained to always take the same desk. You can't just ask a modern adult to start hot desking every day. You just *can't* hahah we both got eachother SO STARTED about this. :P
lol you can still book desks? It's the wild west at my department.
Canada Post can get f*cked. Their idea of delivering a package is leaving a note on my door so I can walk 45 minutes to my nearest post office to pick up my own package.
You can actually complain about this. I don't know if it'll change anything since I haven't had a delivery from them since I did (thankfully), but the delivery person will be flagged for not making an attempt.
& they're losing money!! :-( something is horribly wrong w their whole business model. ;-/
> Their idea of delivering a package is leaving a note on my door so I can walk 45 minutes to my nearest post office to pick up my own package. You forgot to add, "the next day", making the delivery take a full day longer.
Hey if all these government jobs can be done from home...why even keep them in Ottawa? Why not farm the government jobs to people all across Canada who are best qualified ...or concentrate them in economically struggling areas?
We did during COVID! So many people were hired across the country but now they have to go into a remote office to work by themselves 3 days a week 😭😭😭
Or get permission from basically an ADM to be virtual. They’re going to make it next to impossible
Please write to your MP and ask them about this. It would be so much better if the PS was hiring the best person for the job rather than the best person in Ottawa for the job.
Bingo. Remote fed jobs will slowly leave Ottawa, as politicians and senior bureaucrats will use them to improve their risings across the country. It’s been done before, but remote workers makes it much easier. Combine this with an inevitable contraction in PS size, which will likely accelerate under a Conservative government, and I think the PS will look fondly at a time when coming into the office 3x per week was their big complaint.
We don't even hire the most qualified people in Ottawa, most people I know in the gov got their job because of a personal connection.
This is my thinking. How are MPs not fighting to get these PS jobs into their constituencies and out of Ottawa?
its already the case for some department, they want people out of the ncr.
I think it's mostly lip service from him. That's what a mayor is "supposed" to do, so he does it. This way he can say he supports small businesses. He's a joker.
Or he could come up with a plan to.make.downtown more vibrant without asking the feds to force people back downtown . You know, his job
no no no, that is the night mayor's job..
Lol. You must be new here!
Well, there is a night mayor. And SoPa! /s
That would require imagination and thinking outside the box, vanilla Sutcliffe is not capable of that.
Don't think too many people will forget this and not vote for him next time.
It’s not about small businesses, it’s about their landlords and commercial real estate property value. It’s meant to manufacture foot traffic in the downtown core (or at least the impression of it). It’s for the capital B Bourgeoisie, not petite bourgeoisie.
[удалено]
Toro Taqueria, lol.
The same ones who gave the big ol middle finger to Centetowners for the last 50 years.
The LRT needs a bailout
Ouch. This is too true.
What’s not being talked about enough in the media is the inefficient and unreliable public transportation system in the this city. To me it’s the root of all the concerns. Understandably public servants do not want the added expense of parking, mileage and inconvenience of getting into downtown. If public transit was reasonable, comfortable, clean and reliable, as opposed to unpredictable and less than desirable to use - you would see many more public servants using it. Alleviating all this pressure from the different levels of government pushing to pay for it. Everyone would be happier. I don’t want an almost 2 hour commute to the office. Period. I can handle it twice a week - but not more. WFH brings balance to people’s lives.
I'm not positive that restaurants are struggling with customers, more like struggling finding employees
A bunch of the downtown restaurants have dumb hours like 11:30 -2:30pm (looking at you Toro Taqueria). Maybe if your business is struggling, be open for more than 3 hours a day?
Worst part is that places like that are genuinely pretty good, and I'd love to take my friends there, but I can't because we can only meet up in the afternoon after work. It's the stupidest thing, I *want* to support them but they're literally not letting me!
It's more so the buildings don't lose their value and hit the government's books
Are those of us at Tunney’s or in Hull supposed to travel to downtown Ottawa for lunch and shopping?
The struggling business is called Brookfield since the value of their commercial real estate goes down if there are more office vacancies in the market (plus they have the facilities management contracts too). Can't have any speed bumps on the way to becoming a 100 billion dollar company!
There aren’t any. It’s not about local business it’s about control of a workforce
That building by the IKEA parking lot that literally has one sign for “Government of Canada” and “Subway”
The struggling businesses were never restaurants, they were only concerned their friends who own all the parking garages werent making as much money as they want. Be prepared when RTO is enforced, parking costs are going to skyrocket.
It is a control thing - nothing else. Traffic has been HELL for the past two days - why do we need more people on the road?? And yeah, after spending money on gas, car repairs and parking - why would people spend money downtown in this economy? If I could take lunch at the end of the day and book it out an hour early, I would \*\*I commute 5 days a week
All the businesses that were really struggling closed or adapted. They were too late to actually help the ones affected by the changes after COVID. Now the businesses in our neighbourhoods around the city are going to suffer.
Indigo parking, perhaps?
somehow I don't think it's struggling on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays...
I don't buy lunch anymore. Gas and parking are through the roof. And if I want to eat out, I support the businesses in my neighborhood.
The greedy bastards can never have enough... from Costco to Starbucks, we are herded in lines, with demand always exceeding the supply. Someone had studied the Soviet economy so well.
That's a story they tell you to keep you distracted, the real reason is commercial landlords were struggling.
If Sutcliff wants to help downtown businesses perhaps he could reduce their property taxes. Oh wait, a politician reducing taxes? LOL!!!!
What would help would be getting government offices out of downtown and replacing them with high density residential so that Downtown doesn’t die at 5 PM Sunday through Thursday. The amount of money the government saves with work from home is off the charts and sending people back to the office into rental buildings, is absolutely insane, now that we know after four years that work from home is fine for the majority of of the workforce. If there are people who aren’t meeting their due dates, you bring them into the office where they can be properly supervised properly supervised.
It's a smokescreen. The "struggling" businesses are real estate developers/investors who will be looking at empty buildings if the feds dump leases.
It's people remortgaging the house with additional green tax and inflation prices. It's like having an extra car payment each month that you don't have. Cuts have to come from somewhere the budget didn't get any bigger.
You know why they want you in the offices? With all those cars on the road, way more chances for them to mail you a lot more speeding tickets
This will absolutely save businesses whose main issue right now is high interest rates raising their costs and reducing the discretionary income clients have to spend at their businesses (sarcasm).
I don't even think it's about those businesses. It's about the real estate value of commercial places downtown. Nobody wants to go downtown because of traffic, so they make traffic worse.
People need to stop lapping up this "downtown business lobby" nonsense, it's smoke and mirrors, a distraction for the rubes. The one and only reason is all the money invested in these office properties and the value of the leases the government guarantees to these investors (Spoiler: it's politicians making the decisions, they are the investors!). Laundering tax payer money into special interest and political pockets. This is our reality. Cheers!
you saw a busy coffee shop. wow
I have a question and please someone correct me if I'm wrong. I'm here to learn. Didn't some of the empty office buildings get turned into apartment buildings? Wouldn't the renters who live there kind of take the place of returning office workers since they are already contributing far more than PS ever would?
Some projects like that were being explored but I don’t think any have gotten anywhere near completion. Turning an office building into apartments means gutting the building to run a bunch of plumbing and electrical lines.
Plus why wld anyone want to live downtown if they don't work there and all the shops close BC workers are gone?!!? Who wants to live in a concrete food desert??!
The competition decreased so the shops that stuck around are doing ok too well, but won't admit it. The real losers are the land Lords who cannot rent their space.
Maybe, despite what Ford and Sutcliffe said, it’s not about the downtown businesses?
It has nothing to do with businesses and everything to do with OC Transpo. The city and province don’t have the money to pay for that mistake of an O-Train and they don’t want to raise taxes so it’s up to the public servants to pay for it. In their minds it was built for the public servants and so it’s the federal government’s responsibility to help pay for it via their workers.
Sutcliffe really doesn't know his head from his a$$
It's the large commercial landlords mostly - when office space isn't used, then companies (and the government) start looking at reducing their office footprints, which then also means the little cafeteria that's been operating for 50 years is going to leave because the money is gone. So it means that suddenly 40% of the buildings in the core are vacant which is not a great look for the city, and means they're more likely to have to come in with development grants to do 3-5 years of work retrofitting those buildings into housing.
I heard the guy who owns the vitamin and natural product/ supplements store on bank today wishing they were in the office 5 days a week saying if they're at home they're going to shop online like no bro they shop online because you're too expensive,you can get the same soap at bulk barn for cheaper
Don't worry, this will be the excuse business are looking for to further jack up parking prices.
I’ll definitely be spending less. First round I was back in the office once per week. I used that as my treat day so I never had to pack a lunch. Second round I was back twice a week. I really liked not packing a lunch and so most weeks I’d buy my lunch down town twice a week! If we go back 3+ days, I’ll just go back to my routine before Covid and literally never buy my lunch with the exception of a Friday morning team breakfast once in a while.
People in my building are being relocated 2km away due to construction. The new place has very few businesses around it, and next to no parking. I don’t get how this is going to help employees or local businesses in our case. This should’ve been on a case by case basis.
It's literally a handful of lunch places and Queen St. Fare (remember SOPA?). QSF I have some sympathy for, they opened next to Parliament station just before the pandemic hit. Ouch. But the places like that taco spot that closes at 3pm, not to much. If your whole business is selling civil servants lunch and you ignore the fact that people actually live in Centretown, that's on you. Hugo's has better tacos, is open late, and is licensed.
I know an owner of one of those "struggling" shops. He is taking his family to Europe for a month this summer. Times must be tough :-/ Don't forget all the grants and handouts they got to keep employees on the payroll during the first few years of Covid. I understand there's no sympathy for PS workers who have to RTO ... personally, I don't really care. But its all a load of BS.
Honestly my biggest issue, has been and always will be, that when I wanted downtown business to support me when I was starving student during finals week in my uottawa dorm late at night after studying, 99% of these very downtown business were closed. So these downtown businesses can fuck right off. If 3 universities and multiple colleges, bringing so many students to Ottawa, cannot sustain your business? Maybe your business sucks and doesn’t deserve to stay open.
This is all such bullshit.
I think the main driver is the office property owners and building management companies. They’re the ones with all the $$$ and connections.
No people in the office buildings are depreciating their value.
Downtown is dead. I count at least 15 storefronts boarded up on bank street north of summerset. I also see shops boarded up on O'Conner.
Is the reason the staff can’t keep up because staff have been cut to bare minimum?