Prime Minister Carney: Stop Serving Corporate Overlords While Workers Face Office Mandates

WHO: Draw the Line Coalition

MEDIA CONTACT: Gur Tsabar and Alicia Parker, [email protected]

Toronto, ON - As return-to-office mandates spread across Canada — from Ontario's provincial workers to major banks — Prime Minister Mark Carney's corporate-first agenda becomes clear. While workers face expensive commutes, costly downtown lunches, and rigid schedules that destroy work-life balance, corporate landlords and downtown businesses profit from forced returns to overpriced office spaces.

The contrast is stark: billionaire real estate moguls demand full offices to protect their property values while Carney cuts 15% from public services that working families depend on. Corporate overlords are using return-to-office mandates to shore up dying real estate schemes, control workers while refusing to pay living wages or fund affordable housing. 

"We refuse to let corporate overlords dictate how we live and work while they hoard billions," said Nathan Prier, President of the Canadian Association of Professional Employees (CAPE), echoing the Draw the Line campaign's core demand to put people over corporate profit. "Office workers proved they're more productive with remote work rights — this is about corporate control, not productivity. Prime Minister Carney is wasting billions of taxpayer dollars to prop up landlord profits, while making the public service less productive."

Meanwhile, the government has also quietly backed away from their pre-pandemic promise to convert half of federal buildings into housing in order to support the return to office mandate.

PM Carney: Stop serving downtown landlords and corporate bosses. Tax the ultra-rich. End corporate subsidies. Fund the housing, healthcare, transit, and good jobs that let workers thrive — not expensive commutes that drain their paychecks.

On September 20th, tens of thousands will mobilize across 60+ Canada cities to draw the line against this billionaire agenda that puts corporate profit over people's lives and basic needs. Full details of all the actions can be found at drawtheline.world/dtl-canada-s11.

Real leadership means serving working families — not corporate boardrooms and billionaire donors.

-30-

The Draw the Line mobilizations in Canada are organized by Seniors for Climate, Migrant Rights Network, Indigenous Climate Action, Sacred Earth Solar, Climate Action Network Canada (CAN-Rac), 350.org, World Beyond War Canada, For Our Kids, Climate Reality Project Canada, Climate Emergency Unit, Greenpeace Canada, Council of Canadians and Music Declares Emergency, and endorsed by over 200 organizations representing millions of Canadians. From rallies to strikes, marches to gatherings, this September 20th, communities will mobilize across the country and demand that Prime Minister Carney and the Canadian government pick a side: injustice, violence, and climate destruction- or a just and safe future for all of us.

For media inquiries, please email [email protected]

If you want to ask something that isn't covered in the Frequently Asked Questions, please email us at [email protected].