What Ottawa’s mayoral frontrunners are promising federal public servants

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Alongside the usual issues that tend to dominate local elections, frontrunners vying for the top job at city hall say this campaign also bears the unmistakable stamp of the feds.

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As the federal government reshapes its workforce — by cutting jobs and ordering public servants back to the office in droves — several leading candidates for mayor of Ottawa are polishing their pitches to the affected workers.

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Numbering nearly 150,000 in the National Capital Region, federal public servants represent a significant chunk of the voting public.

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With policies like the recent four-day return-to-office mandate (known widely as RTO) bringing cascading effects to nearly every other area of life in Ottawa, some mayoral hopefuls are counting on those issues driving people to the polls.

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Here’s what each of them is promising public servants.

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Mark Sutcliffe

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Despite knocking on “thousands of doors,” incumbent Mayor Mark Sutcliffe said he’s heard very little from voters about issues specific to federal public servants. Instead, he said, most people are raising concerns about affordability, transit, safety and infrastructure.

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He acknowledged, however, that his challengers appear to be treating some federal policies, especially RTO, as wedge issues on the campaign trail.

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He said he prefers to focus his attention elsewhere.

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Asked which elements of his platform speak directly to current or former federal public servants, Sutcliffe highlighted efforts to strengthen the local job market for tech, tourism, defence and cybersecurity.

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“If the federal government is continuing to reduce the size of its workforce, then there are going to be public servants looking for jobs, and we need to make sure that there’s job creation happening in other parts of the local economy,” he said in an interview.

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Sutcliffe previously touted the city’s bid to host a proposed multinational defence investment bank as part of a broader plan to offset public service cuts.

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And with public servants representing “disproportionate users” of the city’s transit system, Sutcliffe said his promise of cheaper transit fares would “be of interest and benefit” to government workers.

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In the first major announcement of his campaign, Sutcliffe pledged to cut the price of OC Transpo’s monthly adult pass by 30 per cent, to $95 a month.

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Sutcliffe’s campaign pegged the cost of the plan at somewhere between $8 million and $10 million per year, paid for through savings from uploading the LRT to Metrolinx, a deal that is expected but hasn’t yet been realized.

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Sutcliffe also outlined plans for a “major employer” pass that could extend to the federal government, but the idea isn’t fully fleshed out.

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Details may change from one employer to the next, Sutcliffe said, but the pass would likely follow a similar mould to OC Transpo’s current bulk deal with universities and colleges.

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“We’re open to trying anything that makes sense,” he said.

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As for the federal government’s latest return-to-office mandate, Sutcliffe sought to clarify what he viewed as “false implications being thrown around” concerning his stance on the issue.

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He called it “preposterous” that the federal government would change its hybrid work policy at the advice of Ottawa’s mayor and said any insinuation that he asked the feds to send workers back to the office is untrue.

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In his view, appealing to voters on the issue of RTO amounts to an “empty promise” that misrepresents the power of the mayor’s office.

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When the federal government announced its most recent RTO changes in February, Sutcliffe said he understood public servants weren’t happy about it, but called it “good news” for downtown businesses.

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This summer, the mayor also backtracked on a communications strategy that would have encouraged “workers and visitors who travel to the downtown core to extend their time in the area,” after receiving backlash from public servants and the unions that represent them.

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Jeff Leiper

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Kitchissippi Coun. Jeff Leiper is having a much different experience at the door.

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“RTO keeps coming up — in Barrhaven, in Riverside South, in Kanata,” he said in an interview.

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“I hear about RTO at every shift on the doors, from multiple doors… and it hasn’t slowed since the campaign began.”

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Leiper believes the federal RTO policy is “baked” into the local campaign.

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In his previous three campaigns running for city council, Leiper said he’s “never had cause” to pitch policies directly to public servants.

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“That has changed completely in this election,” he said.

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At an Aug. 24 campaign announcement, Leiper promised to reverse the city’s five-day return-to-office mandate for municipal employees and “push back” against the federal government’s four-day in-office policy if elected mayor.

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He committed to giving city workers “maximum flexibility” to choose a working arrangement that benefits their families.

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Among the leading mayoral candidates, Leiper said he alone has a “track record” of opposing RTO.

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Last September, Leiper introduced a motion at council calling on city manager Wendy Stephanson to “rescind” the city’s five-day in-office baseline.

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Councillors instead voted to reaffirm Stephanson’s authority on the issue through a replacement motion supported by Sutcliffe and the majority of council. (Sutcliffe has repeatedly stressed that municipal staffing decisions lie with the city manager — not the mayor.)

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Leiper’s focus on RTO has been criticized as “pandering by proxy” to federal public servants, who would be unaffected by any workplace changes directed at municipal workers.

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But Leiper draws a clear line between an increase in federal commuters and congestion on the roads.

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Finally, Leiper said his commitment to transparency at city hall would be “well understood” and appreciated by voters familiar with working in a bureaucracy.

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Alex Lawson

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At the doors, Alex Lawson is repeatedly hearing from federal workers who are fed up with commuting downtown “for no reason at all.”

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One woman, for instance, told him her commute from Stittsville now takes her nearly two hours on transit.

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“What are we doing to people here?” he asked in an interview.

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On Aug. 5, Lawson’s campaign released a series of policies directly responding to the federal government’s latest return-to-office mandate.

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He committed to putting the city “formally on record” opposing the RTO decision and promised to restore “station-to-station” express bus service at morning and afternoon peaks by redeploying buses the city already owns.

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He also wants city leadership to encourage the federal government to “decentralize,” pointing to satellite offices outside the downtown core as a model (a policy Leiper echoed at a later campaign announcement).

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Although decisions around the offices rest with the federal government, Lawson said the city should take an inventory of available real estate outside the core and see what can be done with it.

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“We’ll sit down with Treasury Board and say, ‘Hey, what would make this feasible for you? What can we offer? How can we help?’” he said.

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Lawson’s platform identifies “land, zoning, and permits” as levers under city control and promises to use them to “get federal workplaces built where the workers already live: Kanata, Orléans, Barrhaven and the south end.”

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Lawson also released an economic plan designed to mitigate the effects of recent job losses in the city, including thousands of layoffs across the federal public service.

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Between March 2025 and 2026, the public service population in the National Capital Region dropped by nearly 8,000 employees, and experts say the government is on pace to meets its target of shrinking the public service by nearly 40,000 positions from a peak in 2023-2024.

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Lawson’s economic plan included promises to broker youth hiring commitments from employers, task a small team at the city with monitoring the labour market and develop an online portal that compiles information on available jobs and training.

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Neil Saravanamuttoo

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As Neil Saravanamuttoo sees it, federal policies affecting public servants, particularly RTO, are “absolutely” a live issue on the campaign trail.

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“The whole RTO issue is front and centre for so many people,” he said. “People can be productive anywhere, including at home.”

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Like other candidates, Saravanamuttoo believes the city’s transportation network is poorly positioned to handle the increased demand. His transit promises include a “buck-a-ride” pitch that would drastically slash single trip fares and a “total network redesign” of the city’s bus system.

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On RTO, he said he would ask the federal government to evaluate whether the mandate is achieving its intended goals and, if not, to reconsider the decision.

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“We all make mistakes,” he said. “Sometimes we have to admit when we’ve made those and change course.”

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Saravanamuttoo said he would advocate for “creative solutions” to issues stemming from the RTO push, including working with the federal government to establish a shuttle bus service from underused parking lots on the edge of the core, such as those at Confederation Heights.

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“This is how The Ottawa Hospital gets its staff from one location to another,” he said. “There’s precedent for this.”

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OC Transpo could potentially partner with the feds on the initiative, Saravanamuttoo said, though he was unsure whether the transit agency currently has the capacity to participate.

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Like both Leiper and Lawson, Saravanamuttoo touted the importance of bringing back satellite offices for federal workers.

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“I know that would go a long way for a lot of people,” he said.

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