The federal government is ordering public servants to be in the office at least four days a week starting this summer, with executives expected to return to the office full time in May.

A Treasury Board message to deputy department heads published Thursday said executives will have to work on-site five days per week starting May 4. All other employees must be in the office four days a week as of July 6.

The directive applies to public servants working in the core departments and agencies under Treasury Board, though the government said other federal agencies, which would include the Canada Revenue Agency and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, are “strongly encouraged” to take a similar approach.

Remote work rules have been an ongoing issue in the public service since COVID-19 forced most federal workers to work remotely in 2020. After public health restrictions began to ease, the federal government moved in 2023 to have workers return to the office two to three days a week.

The current rule, in place since September 2024, requires public servants to work a minimum of three days a week in-office, with executives in office four days per week.
Thursday’s order updates that rule.

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“The Government has put forward ambitious plans to deliver on priorities for Canadians and to strengthen our country,” said the Treasury Board message. “Working together onsite is an essential foundation of the strong teams, collaboration and culture needed during this pivotal moment and beyond.”

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Return-to-office rules for public servants set to kick in. What to know

The message was signed by Treasury Board secretary Bill Matthews, chief human resources officer Jacqueline Bogden and associate chief human resources officer Francis Trudel.

It said the government will engage with unions to implement the plan, with discussions to focus on issues like assigned seating and occupational health and safety.

The message also said Public Services and Procurement Canada will work closely with departments to ensure there is enough office space for all employees.

Sean O’Reilly, president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, told The Canadian Press he finds the government’s decision “insulting and disrespectful.”

“I would like to say I was surprised but I’m not,” said O’Reilly, who was made aware of the move less than an hour before the message went out to employees. “I’m really beside myself on just why the decision is being made now.”

O’Reilly said he’s skeptical about the discussions the government will have with bargaining agents, adding that his union will be “vocal” about the issue and push back on the government.

“I don’t know how this helps the Government of Canada. It doesn’t save them money. This doesn’t increase productivity,” he said. “I don’t see how this helps my members or how it helps the Canadian people.”

The message to employees said more information will be shared “in due course.”

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While farming is a huge factor in Saskatchewan’s economy, it’s not easy to get into the industry.

An agricultural conference at the Western Development Museum, hosted by Sask Young Ag on February 5th, hopes to bridge the gap between young and experienced farmers through conversation and advice.

“There’s such a big room of knowledge that you may not understand or see. You come here, you take even one thing home, one word home, and that could change a lot of things for you,” says Wyatt Gorrill, a grain farmer and Sask Young Ag board member.

For young people, the insight is very valuable.

“Teaching us the reins and getting those fresh ideas in as early as possible is very important,” says Claire Nagel, a future farmer who is representing Hunters Paradise Farming and Outfitting at the conference.

Sask Young Ag board members say there is a lack of young people going into the industry for a variety of reasons.

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“Toughest thing would be the amount of money it takes to get into it. If you start with nothing, it’s nearly impossible to get somewhere,” says Gorrill.

Many young farmers are generational, learning and inheriting skills from family before them.

“The critical issues that they run into is maybe knowing where to start. If they haven’t had, if their family hasn’t had to experience a transition before,” said Morgan Lehmann, a young producer and master’s student.

The current global market is also presenting new challenges for young farmers, says Nagel.

“The land prices, the grain prices right now are not great, especially with the tariffs with the U.S. and China… I would say that’s a huge challenge. Another challenge is succession planning.”

Both current and upcoming farmers say they would like to see more support, like Grant, who hopes for changes to the crop insurance structure.

“Their crop insurance and their other insurance and stuff and looking into new ways to help out farmers in that way because in the dry areas of the province there definitely is becoming a problem where they haven’t gotten a crop for quite a few years,” Grant said.

Despite the challenges, young farmers say they are excited about the future.

“I think that within the farming industry you have so many different opportunities,” said Nagel, with Lehmann adding, “We support feeding the world and I think that it’s a really honourable thing to care for the land.”

Watch above for more on challenges young producers are facing.

New Brunswick is leaving X after recent concerns surrounding the social media platform’s operations.

In a post that was shared on X — as well as Facebook — Premier Susan Holt said the province will no longer use X for routine communications.

“Protecting the safety and well-being of young people is a core responsibility of the government,” she wrote.

“We recognize that the platform’s recent history, including reports of harmful content and inadequate safeguards, has eroded trust that it can be used in a way that aligns with our values and obligations to New Brunswickers.”

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X, formerly Twitter, has been facing global condemnation and some crackdowns on its AI chatbot Grok for creating deepfake sexual images of children and women.

Last week, the European Union opened a formal investigation into X over the issue and Canada has been considering its response too.

Holt said she will continue to use other social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and Bluesky to communicate.

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The Coquitlam School District says two secondary schools in the city are no longer under a hold and secure order on Thursday.

The school district stated that Centennial and Gleneagle secondary schools were impacted and the order for a hold and secure was at the request of the RCMP, who were present at both schools for hours.

“I’d like to start off with letting the community know that students and staff of the Coquitlam School District are safe,” Insp. Todd Balaban, acting officer in charge of the Coquitlam RCMP, said at a press conference on Thursday afternoon.

“Thanks to the quick actions of the schools implementing their hold and secure protocols, our officers were able to quickly attend and verify the safety and security of the school.”

The two incidents on Thursday followed similar incidents on Wednesday.

Eight schools across Coquitlam and Port Coquitlam were also placed under a hold and secure on Wednesday after numerous threats were called into the schools.

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An elementary school in Port Moody was also affected.

“Through our ongoing investigation, we confirmed that these instances are connected,” Balaban said. “We can confirm the nature of the alleged threats have varied, but in order to protect the integrity of the investigation, no information will be provided.

“These threats were received by phone.”

Balaban added that police are aware of information circulating on social media about the investigation and are asking anyone who may have information to contact them at 604-949-5054.

“We take every threat seriously, because it’s a child, it’s family,” he added.

“We have to take it seriously until proven otherwise. So we implement the protocols that we have in place, we have the officers attend, we assess it, and then we can downgrade it once we know that the threat is not there and that the community is safe, the schools are safe, kids are safe and staff are safe.”

Sharon Perry, a concerned parent, told Global News outside Centennial on Thursday morning that hearing the school is on a hold and secure again is scary.

“I mean, the first time, the second time, the third time … your heart just stops,” she said.

Receiving messages that your child is scared and there’s nothing you can do is one of the hardest things a parent can go through. Living a block away from the school, seeing the police show up, seeing them block the streets, seeing the very large guns that they’re all carrying. It’s just being helpless.”

Perry said she would like to see more communication from the school district about what is happening.

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A Transportation Safety Board report released Thursday recommends pilots think twice before practising potentially risky safety manoeuvres with passengers aboard.

It comes after a fatal helicopter landing in central Alberta claimed the life of a passenger.

The report examined a crash of a Bell Textron 206L-4, known as a LongRanger, which experienced a hard landing in July 2025 while conducting a private flight west of Red Deer with the pilot and one passenger on board.

They had made a 34-minute afternoon flight from a mountain lodge west of Sundre to a private farmland air strip near Benalto in Lacombe County, about 130 kilometres away.

The report said the pilot began practising autorotation — an emergency procedure typically used in helicopters when the engine fails.

The first autorotation landing was uneventful, but the report said a second attempt resulted in the helicopter pitching upward, banking and then descending rapidly before hitting the ground.

The passenger, a 54-year-old resident of Benalto, was killed, while the 63-year-old pilot, who was a resident of Lacombe County, was seriously injured, suffering a head injury.

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The TSB said medical or physiological factors, including fatigue, were not a factor leading to the hard landing.

The pilot held a commercial pilot licence — helicopter and a private pilot licence — and at the time of the crash, had logged about 3,500 hours of rotary-wing flying and about 1,800 hours flying that helicopter. His medical testing was up to date.

The TSB said the pilot had completed his proficiency check in that chopper in the month before the crash, as well as maintained a regular training schedule, conducting recurrent training flights with a flight instructor approximately every six months.

The training flights included helicopter handling and practice autorotations. The TSB said he’d completed a training flight the day before his most recent proficiency check and, in the 60 days leading up to the crash, had logged 33 flight hours in the LongRanger.

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The report said that while practising autorotations is essential to helicopter pilot training, it’s riskier than regular flight, and exposing passengers to the elevated risk “should be carefully considered” before pilots do it.

“In Canada, there are regulations restricting emergency training with passengers during commercial operations but not during private operations,” the TSB report noted.

The report also said neither person on board wore a helmet. While not required, it said the pilot suffered a serious head injury.

It said an article was published in 2024 in Transport Canada’s Aviation Safety Letter, advocating for the use of a helmet for all helicopter operations.

That article titled, Look Like Maverick, Wear Your Helmet! noted a high percentage of helicopter accidents occur at low speed during the hovering phase. It said that in a rollover, the chopper’s main rotor blades strike surrounding obstacles or the ground with such tremendous force that “the shock felt by the occupants is brutal.”

A helmet can also protect the pilot during bird strikes where the bird smashes through the window, the article said.

The passenger was wearing their seatbelt. However, the TSB said that with the way the helicopter landed, the crash was not survivable for the passenger due to the force and direction of impact.

— With files from The Canadian Press

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Eight months after the Fredericton Police Force admitted that errors they made led to a stay of proceedings in two deaths, the police chief says all 19 recommendations by an independent investigator are now in progress. 

Chief Gary Forward told a public safety committee meeting at City Hall on Thursday that all recommendations should be completed by summer 2027.

“It’s critically important that the police force demonstrate through action that not only do we have accountability for this, but that we are prepared to do the hard work to make sure that it doesn’t happen again,” he said.

The Crown stayed five murder charges in June 2025 related to the homicides of Corey Markey and Brandon Patrick Donelan due to an “unsurmountable evidentiary issue” that was reported by Forward.

1:59
Fredericton police ‘error’ forced homicide cases to be stayed, report can’t disclose why

The issue has not been made public, but the chief issued an apology at the time and promised the independent review.

In December 2025, Ian D. Scott, a lawyer and former director of Ontario’s police watchdog, released the findings of his review.

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Scott said the report did not find any substantial criminal or disciplinary misconduct by any of the officers involved in the cases. However, it did find “limitations” in how the force deals with complex cases.

The report made 19 recommendations to improve oversight, training, file prioritization and staffing. It called for the creation of an oversight committee, more up-to-date training and reduced workload for investigative teams.

“Public trust with the community is certainly our priority moving forward,” Forward said Thursday.

“This is why we have the subject matter experts coming in to act as that oversight to make sure that we’re proceeding with these recommendations, so that in a very short period of time, we can feel more comfortable about the fact that the issue won’t repeat itself.”

Fredericton Mayor Kate Rogers told Global News she’s pleased with the force’s response and progress.

“My hope is that the public appreciates that there has been accountability taken and that the issue has been taken seriously and that due diligence has been employed,” she said.

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New Brunswick murder trials stayed due to ‘insurmountable evidentiary issue’

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