At a Niagara Region Corporate Services Committee meeting earlier this month, Regional Councillors debated whether Niagara Region employees should be forced to return to the office full time, following the lead of the province.
The move was spearheaded by Councillor Bob Gale (Niagara Falls), who suggested that, even if unpopular, the Region should follow the Ford government’s lead in requiring employees to return to the office full time.
“I don’t think it’s fair for the workers that are showing up to work,” Gale said of the present hybrid work arrangements currently in place for thousands of the Region’s employees. “I understand the reasons it was brought on with COVID, but we’re not a private business, people should be coming back to the office.”
“I understand we have to be compassionate at times on an individual basis,” Gale continued. “Regardless, when it comes to Council, I’ll be asking for a recorded vote.”
Gale is expected to have the full Niagara Regional Council vote on whether to align the Region’s presence in the workplace policies with the policies recently adopted by Queen’s Park.
Some of Gale’s colleagues on the Corporate Services Committee weighed in on Gale’s proposal, and they were largely not in agreement with the Niagara Falls Councillor.
Fort Erie Mayor Wayne Redekop, who is also a Regional Councillor and serves on the committee, worried about the implications of ending hybrid workforce arrangements.
“There are a variety of factors that would go into this,” said Redekop. “Some of them include whether a municipality can be competitive in attracting the most valuable employees.”
Redekop worries that without offering hybrid work arrangements, some lower-tier municipalities, and the Region itself, might have trouble attracting top talent when it comes to staff.
“In the Town of Fort Erie…we’re at the bottom of the QEW, the furthest away from a lot of the most talented individuals, so part of the time…we do have to consider allowing employees to work from home for a portion of the week,” added Redekop. “So, I’m not thinking that this is a policy that should be dealt with with one broad brush.”
Redekop also pointed to space capacity as a potential problem should every employee be forced to return to the office.
Still, Redekop acknowledged that there are “extreme benefits” in having workers congregate.
West Lincoln and Wainfleet employees are in the office five days a week, while employees in Niagara Region’s other municipalities have various hybrid arrangements in place.
Gale plans to raise the issue again at the next meeting of the full Niagara Regional Council.
Jay Goldberg is the Canadian Affairs Manager at the Consumer Choice Center. He previously served as the Ontario Director at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and a policy fellow at the Munk School of Public Policy and Global Affairs. Jay holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Toronto.
