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Sunday

January

4

2026

HAPPY NEW YEAR! (now get back to work Ontario!)

  • Sunday, January 4, 2026

First of all, Happy New Year everyone! I know it was a few days ago now and, in today’s news cycle, that might as well be a Millenium (Falcon) ago. But I haven’t talked to many people outside of my family since the clock struck 2026 because, frankly, I didn’t HAVE to.

Now though, it’s back to regularly scheduled life! Which for millions of school-aged children means getting back into the classroom and putting their thinking caps back on and for millions of adults, back to the workplace (whether they want to or not).

For me personally it means prepping for my first standup performances of the year this week in Ottawa (info at stevepatterson.ca/shows/) and writing to meet two different deadlines for publishers and producers whom have been patiently waiting for quite some time now.

So naturally, I’m spending the first moments of my writing time this year on something that was NOT assigned and NO ONE was waiting for: Ontario workers going back to work.

This Monday, January 5th, 2026 (get used to writing THAT on all your bitcoins) marks the first time in months or in some cases YEARS that many workers in the province of Ontario will have to actually GO to work on a Monday morning.

Apparently, many of those workers are not very happy about this.

I gleaned so much from conversations with some day job people recently who responded to my questions of “are you going back to work in an office?” with a tirade of profanity usually reserved for parental criticisms of referees at young children’s hockey games. And also by the fact that all the top articles dedicated to a search on “Ontario back to work” are either by law firms advising workers on how they can legally fight going back, or, indeed, angry posts on reddit (reddit.com) written by workers themselves, who seem to have found a real niche in writing long online think pieces in between periods of working (from home) on their actual work.

I gleaned so much from conversations with some day job people recently who responded to my questions of “are you going back to work in an office?” with a tirade of profanity usually reserved for parental criticisms of referees at young children’s hockey games.

As for the government who is mandating all this, Doug Ford’s Ontario Provincials, obviously they believe it is in the best interests of the province. Although they themselves won’t be showing up to THEIR workplace at Queen’s Park until February 17, 2026 which seems at first like a pretty ironic thing to do when you’re ordering other people back to work on January 5th. But in fairness, February 17 is the New Year in the Lunar calendar. And Doug Ford is nothing if not… Lunar.

There’s also the small matter of small spaces. Apparently, government offices in Ontario have gotten used to not having people in them and no one is really sure if they have enough room for everyone that they’ve ordered to return to work to actually fit into their workplaces. I’m not sure why that is. Perhaps the Provincial government turned some of the office space into a thermal spa?

Perhaps the Provincial government turned some of the office space into a thermal spa?

Whatever the case may be, I sincerely do feel for everyone returning to their workplace tomorrow that doesn’t really want to be doing so. Which seems to be, in my limited informal polling, around 99% of workers affected. To many it seems unnecessary, unproductive and, as it seems many are trying to prove, ILLEGAL given that their work is still being technically completed remotely.

But the Ontario government has decided that downtown businesses in places like Toronto NEED the infusion of income that a large, at work, workforce provides (a.k.a. “lunch money”). And as Ford himself said back in the summer when this legislation was announced: “I believe everyone’s more productive when they’re at work. How do you mentor someone over the phone? You can’t. You got to look at them eye to eye or at the water cooler.”

Which is a weird statement for a number of reasons, including:

  1. who is being mentored by Doug Ford?
  2. Who still uses the PHONE?
  3. Doesn’t everyone have their own giant YETI water bottle by now?

So, while I do empathize with those being forced to return to work tomorrow (full disclosure: I enjoy listening to Toronto morning traffic reports while writing at home), I also wish you good luck with all the mentoring at the water cooler! Just don’t look for the mentoring FROM the Premier himself. He’ll likely be at his cottage when all of you are on your way back to work, eating Chapman’s ice cream and (slowly) pouring Crown Royal onto the floor, right up until Ontario Legislature’s return to work on Feb 17 2026. When the Lunar year finally gets back to work itself.