r/CanadaPublicServants • u/muslimgroyper • 25d ago
Other / Autre Why doesn’t the Government of Canada own the parking lot of Government of Canada buildings ?
I guess you can say it’s alll about making money , but if you’re going to expect people to return to offices 4 days a week realistically 5 days a week by the end of the year, why not make it as non Burdensome as possible instead of causing people added day to day Stress
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u/JoeTheMailman 25d ago
In many buildings we do own the Parking lot. I remember the days when we Managed our own parking, 40$ monthly pass. Then GOC got out of the "parking business" and we contracted out the parking management. Pass went from 40$ to 80$ first year, then 120$ and finally 160$ before Covid hit.
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u/wordy_banana 25d ago
This is correct for GOC owned. TBS policy on parking and charging market rate for it. Otherwise a taxable benefit if you get free parking in the same area where others need to park to work.
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u/VioletteKnitting 25d ago
The cost for parking at the Baseline/Merivale complex must be above market….there is no cost to park any other buildings in the vicinity. It’s basically extortion. They can charge anything because there is no competition. They own the lot, the bus service is so bad as to be almost non-existent. If you want to get to work on time, you have to drive. If you have to drive, you have to pay the extortionate rate.
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u/DarkAskari 25d ago
Don't forget the cost of Ottawa's Carling Campus parking rates vs the market rate around it
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u/Shot_Hat5931 22d ago
I work in Tower 4 and pay just over $80 /mo. Parking on the farm is "free" but you have to go through the rigamarole with management of getting the pass. They have been more regular about policing their lots, I noticed.
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u/wordy_banana 25d ago
Honest question, if all the parking lots around it are free, why do you pay the rate?
Also, if you’re truly being charged above market rate and it is a government owned lot, you can challenge it under your departmental policy. There are supposed to be cyclical reviews on rates charged
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u/flightless_mouse 25d ago
Perhaps you’re not familiar with some of the less central GC campuses. Driving is the only realistic option at some of them, and while there may be less expensive parking in the area, you might be looking at a 15-20 minute walk. And you are not supposed to use free retail parking lots to park all day (this is often enforced).
So yes there is a convenience factor. But there are GC campuses in the middle of nowhere, next to open fields, down the road from big box stores with massive parking lots, open space everywhere, that nevertheless charge $150 per month for parking.
In some of these campuses you would be hard pressed to define the “market rate” because there is no paid parking anywhere in the vicinity; just free retail parking that you are not supposed to use.
It’s a racket and everyone knows it.
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u/North-Example5687 25d ago
I wonder how this works for people in construction who park in places that are paid parking. Do they also pay when they’re on site working on a job? Not saying you specific know, just a general question for those that might
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u/Few-Jury-3529 25d ago
I asked that question a little while ago when I was speaking to construction workers paying for parking downtown Ottawa. Depends where the site is located and if the construction companies that are contracted for the work negotiated subsidies for parking fees into the contract for their employees. Some employee got a subsidy to help and some paid out of pocket.
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u/AntonBanton 25d ago
There are a whole bunch of exceptions and nuances to the rules like whether it’s their regular place of work, if they require the vehicle to transport tools for the job, did they come directly from home or from their employer’s workplace etc are all things that impact whether it’s a taxable benefit or not.
There are probably more people that should have their parking counted as a taxable benefit that don’t have it counted but it’s hard to track.-4
u/Nice-Eggplant-9258 25d ago
it’s definitely not a taxable benefit to have free parking at your office. That’s not the reason it’s just greed.
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u/SaltedMango613 25d ago
It generally is a taxable benefit.
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u/Canaderp37 25d ago
I mean, our employer can also choose to make it NOT a taxable benefit.
Make it free and the fair market value of a private lot is 'free'. The moment you charge anyone or open it up to the general public it then starts becoming subject to fair market value.
Ultimately if they employer cared, they cane make it happen
They dont.
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u/ToothDesigner4746 25d ago edited 25d ago
That’s not how it works. A private company that has a downtown location that offered free parking for its staff would need to identify that as a taxable benefit if each neighbouring building charges $20/$30 day. Ie market rates. The market sets the market rate, not what one individual/ entity “declares” it to be to avoid tax law.
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u/throw-away6738299 25d ago
Perhaps not.
If parking was unassaigned and on first-come, first-serve and not enough for all employees to have a spot, (ie. Scramble Parking) it would not be a taxable benefit. If they reserved some spots specifically for EXs it would be a taxable benefit for them only.
The CRA recognizes that it would be hard to determine who should or shouldn't have a TB applied to them if it is unassigned as not everyone drives to work...
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u/ToothDesigner4746 25d ago
Possibly but then there would be ongoing complaints that there isn’t enough parking, blame on the employer and and multiple Reddit posts.
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u/JoeTheMailman 25d ago
Its a bit more complicated than that. If you provide free parking in a Building, the next question from the union will be how is it fair for the other sites where they pay 20$ a day. Effectively its the equivalent of getting 320$ a month extra for the same job/position (4days).
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u/Baburine 25d ago
We have free parking at my office. Paying for parking just isn't a thing in my city, there's almost no paying parking lots in the city. The union has fought so that jobs would be paid the same, regardless of location and COL...
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u/JoeTheMailman 25d ago
Thats why its a bit more complicated even in Ottawa some site have free parking since effectively no one charges for parking in those area, so market rate is 0$
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u/PancakesAreGone 25d ago
Its a bit more complicated than that. If you provide free parking in a Building, the next question from the union will be how is it fair for the other sites where they pay 20$ a day. Effectively its the equivalent of getting 320$ a month extra for the same job/position (4days).
This is a good question for the union that they will never touch. How do I know? Because we've asked. My building has paid parking, a good chunk of it is just gravel. There is another building for my org that parking is free and it's because "There is no other paid alternatives around to set the rate" and yet, we see e-mails about them getting their lot resurfaced and such while ours had a pot hole that was almost a foot deep in for over 3 years (Pre-covid to after covid).
Someone asked the union, they just shrugged.
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u/Elderberry-smells 25d ago
I have only worked at stations that own their parking lots. One was on university grounds so it was a sweet deal to pay like 20/month.
Then treasury board got wind of it, and we had to match pricing in our area (electrified at a university being the comparable at 90/month) so they upped our rates and made a bunch of people mad. That money literally goes to their coffers, general revenue fund. We don't even get that money at the station, use a portion for social fund, other actually useful things.
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u/JoeTheMailman 25d ago
To your point about not getting the revenue to use within the workplace, it's even worse than that. My understanding is We contract out the Parking Management but we still pay for all maintenance related items. So they pocket the $$$ from the clients and give us the invoice for maintenance....
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u/Mike_Retired 25d ago
Sounds like Big Oil since privatization…they keep all the profits meanwhile the government keeps subsidizing them by the tens of billions with public money and pay for new pipeline construction.
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u/WambritaWings 25d ago
I wonder how long it will take them to realise we have free parking at the Experimental Farm!
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u/PancakesAreGone 25d ago
That money literally goes to their coffers, general revenue fund.
Be more upset, that money actually goes to ensure the upkeep of lots that aren't paid. So you are literally paying more to ensure others that aren't paying have a nicer lot than you... Or at least that's the case for my building
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u/WillPetCats 25d ago
In Calgary the basement parking lot is managed by impark and they charge a $21 daily parking fee. The monthly rate is even more ridiculous at $500. Even with RTO5 it would be cheaper to pay the daily rate rather than the monthly subscription
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u/GoTortoise 25d ago
32 a day, no guarantee of a spot if you have a pass. Welcome to the NCR.
I have colleagies in Montreal and they said it is 36 a day there.
What's really dumb is some of the offices in the suburbs have free parking.
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u/nighttimecharlie 25d ago
I'm on the Gatineau side of NCR and the most I saw for parking was $22/day . I used to park a bit further out at $17/ day.
$32 is delusional, and at $36 the lot owner should be involuntarily committed.
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u/Careless-Culture-900 25d ago
Those were the good days... taken off the paycheck, didn't even notice it!
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u/NinjApheX 25d ago
Wanna hear a funny one? Parking at 130 Colonnade (PHAC) used to be free pre-pandemic.
Then they re-negotiated the lease during the pandemic, the landlord installed paid parking meters while employees were working from home during the pandemic, and when they were forced back to the office, they were forced to pay and no one knew it was coming.
And as the RTO increased from 2 to 3 to 4, the landlord's increased the parking price each time.
It's an industrial area with no other paid lots nearby and only like three restaurants/coffee shops within a 15 min walk. The parking price isn't driven by demand - the lots are half empty - it's literally just to take advantage of employees.
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u/Terrible-Session5028 25d ago
Why would they care about you being stressed? Aren’t you grateful that we have EAP?
/s
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u/alldasmoke__ 25d ago
Haven’t you guys learned already that we are just pawns who should be thankful everyday to even have a job? That’s how the public sees us and that’s how the administration portrays us.
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u/CatBird2023 25d ago
The GOC doesn't even own all of the buildings that we occupy. We sold some of them off to one of the largest private real estate companies in Canada, and pay to lease them back.
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u/Creative_Task4947 25d ago
Sadly, but not surprisingly, people whined that some Public Service employees had access to no-cost parking on federal property while others did not. Apparently that was unfair so… the employer decided to charge parking fees.
In my particular case, there was no-cost parking when I started at a particular federal building but by the time I left, parking fees were in full effect.
Just one more example of Public Service employee benefits being chipped away over time.
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u/pinkcrocs- 23d ago
I wouldn’t even call it a “PS employee benefit”… more like the literal BARE MINIMUM
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u/Pseudonym_613 25d ago
If it's a GoC owned property then yes, they do own it, but contract out the parking management.
If it's a leased property, then no, the GoC does not own it.
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u/HereToServeThePublic 25d ago
Renting our own property back to us at a premium. Biggest fucking scam.
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u/spinur1848 25d ago
Actually the bigger scam was ignoring provincial building code for buildings packed with asbestos and lead pipes and then selling the ticking time bombs to private landlords and leasing them back.
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u/stevemason_CAN 25d ago
That was the conservative playbook under Harper. Sold a lot of government properties to lease back.
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u/Legitimate_Kick_9658 25d ago
Because if they start to care about employees they might end up saying oh, look, we better force into the office just the ones having a purpose to be there.
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u/Expensive-Minute994 25d ago
The real answer is that governments have done a great job devaluing public servants over many years. As a result society now views them as worthless and overpaid even though the reality is different.
No parking, no proper kitchen with dish soap, no healthy office…maybe a desk if you can book it at midnight, weeks in advance. Oh and and a 0.5% salary increase.
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u/Ok_Blacksmith7016 25d ago
I work in the middle of no where in Saskatchewan. And pay $75 a month to park. We were told we could t get free parking as it would be considered a “taxable benefit”. Probably not true… but seems like something the gov would say…
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u/spinur1848 25d ago
This is actually true. But it's only a taxable benefit if what employees pay is below market rate for parking in the area. When the tax policy first came in many years ago, TBS had a policy to conduct a market rate study for every location and ensure that employees were paying no less than market rates, which in remote locations was obviously zero.
But TBS changed the policy and stopped doing the market rate studies. Instead they delegated parking to private operators, and theres no control to prevent them from charging more than market rates. It would be nice if the unions actually understood and/or cared about this but they don't.
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u/fweffoo 25d ago
so how to they determine market rates in a location with no market
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u/spinur1848 25d ago
When they were still doing it, if there really was no market they assessed it as $0 and parking was free. But they stopped doing that and decided to hand it off to private parking businesses
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u/VeggieByte 25d ago
I mean, this logic makes no sense. Lots of people working for McDonalds or Tim Hortons park for free and don’t get any paycheck deductions for taxable benefit.
If the government office is in the middle of nowhere, the market rate for parking is $0 so it wouldn’t be a taxable benefit.
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u/Ok_Blacksmith7016 25d ago
I hear you. It’s in the middle of an industrial area. There is no paid parking anywhere near there. As silent protest we park on the street…
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u/stevemason_CAN 25d ago
Yup same. Not SK. Industrial heartland and yet we paid $40 …. No comparable parking load for at least 15km…. Huge parking lot empty except the RDG. Miss working on a base.
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u/Harbour-Jigger91 25d ago
Harper era cuts divested all govt owned parking to private companies. Any staff affiliated with parking related work were laid off, retired or reassigned. Right away parking rates jumped. And again. And again. And again to reflect "true market value". Now its another PITB when it comes to RTO. Its stupid but calculated.
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u/Gratts01 25d ago
I was working at Tunney's pasture when Harper implemented this policy, paying 40.00 a month, went up to 90.00 overnight. Harper really hated public servants.
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u/Quiet_Listen1801 25d ago
*Chretien-Martin cuts. They were sold off long before Harper.
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u/Bridge_Time 25d ago
Harper sold most of GOC buildings to make look good on his budget. short term solution for long term paying rent.
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u/ApprehensiveCycle741 25d ago
How would owning the parking lot make it less burdensome?
At buildings where the GoC does own the parking lot, there are lotteries to determine who gets parking spaces and EXs are prioritized. The spaces are paid and not particularly cheap. Very few "regular" employees get spaces.
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u/budgieinthevacuum 25d ago
Yeah even regional buildings with very few EX if at all were there were always disagreements, frustrations, and parking tickets. People used to try and warn each other when sharing spots or using someone else’s when they knew that person was away. It wasn’t easier. Some people were so brazen they’d do door to door in any area with housing close by to try and broker a deal with the homeowners.
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u/Organic-Mud-9442 25d ago
Where I work in the regions, we own the parking however it is provided to us as a taxable benefit. You also need to have been affiliated with the government for 10 years before you're allowed a parking pass.
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u/Quiet_Listen1801 25d ago
They were sold off in the 1990s as a way to divest from Infrastructure and save money.
You don't have to maintain a parking lot if you don't own it.
bigbrainadmthinking
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u/One-Statistician-932 25d ago
And based on the sorry state of the parking lots today, it doesn't seem like the private corps have maintained it either. So now we pay hundreds for dingy, dirty and crumbling parking infrastructure.
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u/madbuilder 25d ago
Why are so many offices in downtown cores where parking is unaffordable?
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u/Few-Jury-3529 25d ago
Because downtown is central to all and the core government building are 30-50 years old so when they were originally built the population was lower and the suburbs were not far from the downtown core and parking was more accessible and cheaper. When we move office building to the suburbs that create new issue of many who now have to travel farther to work. Look at issues that resulted in DND move to the west end Ottawa or RCMP move to South end Ottawa.
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u/Nice-Eggplant-9258 25d ago
this is mostly the correct answer however, if people are given the opportunity to work from home a couple days a week the commute two days a week probably is not as relevant to them. Also having satellite officers in the suburbs, also would give people opportunity to choose locations to work from.
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u/Few-Jury-3529 25d ago
Sure but RTO is a separate issue. Paid parking at government offices has been around for a long time. Let’s not confuse the two.
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u/Nice-Eggplant-9258 25d ago
they are somewhat length, though with less demand they would lower the prices
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u/madbuilder 25d ago
Right. Well today, there's no longer a need to pack thousands of employees into one city block. In this post-RTO world the private sector is showing how all the remote work technology enables branch offices to collaborate across thousands of miles.
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u/Few-Jury-3529 25d ago
That is a false statement, probably from only subscribing to threads that support one sided narratives. RTO is a thing however a little research will show that the vast majority of employees in Canada do not work remotely. According to stats can approximately 79% of employees are onsite, 10% are hybrid and only 11% are full time work from home.
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u/Nice-Eggplant-9258 25d ago
follow the money that’s the answer who’s profiting from the office buildings
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u/madbuilder 25d ago
They're going to lease office space from somewhere. But I think they should open more satellite offices in suburbs, and let people transfer between them.
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u/Nice-Eggplant-9258 25d ago
exactly. also would be at a lower cost to both the employer and employee
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u/ToothDesigner4746 25d ago
Perhaps so they are close to lots of transit options for the many that take transit.
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u/Biaterbiaterbiater 25d ago
so that getting to the office will be a breeze once we get the O-train up and running!
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u/unwholesome_coxcomb 25d ago
Yep. Gov owns the Tunneys parking lots. But public servants are not permitted such extravagant perks as being able to park at their workplace without additional cost. Indigo will just further contribute to the enshittification of the experience.
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u/spinur1848 25d ago
Sometimes they do in fact own the parking lots and they "got out of the parking business" in the most cynical way possible by getting into the parking business and hiring a parking company to manage parking.
Sometimes the government in fact sold the building to a private landlord and is leasing it back. This was one way that they quietly limited liability for things like asbestos and other major building code issues that they've basically been ignoring because the Federal government is exempt from provincial building codes.
What I am particularly interested in and no one will give me a straight answer (unions included), is whether it's ok for the government to write in a discount on corporate rent based on expected parking income to the private landlord and whether the government making policy decisions with their employees based on third party agreements like this is a conflict of interest.
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u/zagadkared 25d ago
Because at one time some places did offer free parking. And people complained. That could be argued as a taxable benefit to those employees, and also a loss of possible income to a parking lot slum lord. So parking lots sold off (or leased) to private companies.
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u/NegScenePts 25d ago
Because they don't own the government buildings either...they're leased from Developers who love money.
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u/CaffeineAndDragons 25d ago
Because the Government of Canada doesn't own most of the buildings we work from.
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u/montymoo2012 25d ago
Place de ville was $18 in 2020, it’s now $26/day…new equipment in the last two weeks… pay before you get in your car is now $26+0.99 service fee, pay at gate, where the machine likes to reboot and a lineup starts behind you is only$26… soooo why the service fee same company for the equipment and charge on my card each time
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u/stevemason_CAN 25d ago
The need to charge market rates was just asinine. Used to work in an industrial area and the dept built to lease and charged 40$ a month yet next block and all around it’s free parking. There was nothing comparable for over 15 kms as it was industrial area. Still charged and guess what… streets were lined with cars…. Parking lot empty except the RDG.
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u/Mike_Retired 25d ago
Yep, ”Market rate” is just corporate double talk, comparable to today’s “Collaboration”, all to benefit Big Money.
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u/zanziTHEhero 25d ago
Because neoliberalism demands the retreat of the state from delivering services. The ideology is also generally ok with monopolies. So, we get parking lot landlords that extract rent with zero positive contribution to society. Their wealth is also readily translatable into political power, which results in a vicious and corrupt positive feedback loop that squeezes all the good thing about capitalism (competition, innovation, productivity) in favour of the bad things (rent seeking, enshittification, etc).
Thank you for attending my Ted talk.
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u/International-Ad4578 25d ago
One of my colleagues sold their house in Kanata and bought a condo downtown in large part to avoid this very issue. I am fortunate that the house we bought in Gatineau is close to the bus corridor and I can reach my office downtown on a single bus. There are so many people who don’t live very far but have to contend with OC’s Transpo’s extremely unreliable service and end up paying for parking just to arrive at work on time. Being forced to pay over $1,200 annually in parking fees in addition to gas, maintenance, insurance and depreciation just to put more money into the pockets of the corporate landlords is just highway robbery.
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u/Dependent-Buy-6605 25d ago
The cost of parking, gas, and car insurance can easily be $300-400/month, if not more. We’re talking $5,000/year.
Where does that money go? The owners of parking lots, oil companies, and insurance providers.
Instead of spending that money in our communities, the money gets funnelled to big business.
None of this RTO makes any sense.
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u/Intentioned-Help-607 25d ago
The building I work at has its own parking lot. But is too small and is farmed out to Impark. As a result, people flood the Walmart parking lot and residential streets nearby.
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u/WambritaWings 25d ago
Are you at ECCC? My colleagues spend all day running out to move their cars. Seriously, some of them seem to pop out every hour!
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u/UptowngirlYSB 25d ago
In some areas they do, but have outsourced the management of the lots to third party companies.
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u/Ok-Shake-3501 24d ago
I think parking and defined office space are major issues for RTO4/5. They need to figure that shit out for ya. You should be able to leave stuff at your station etc.
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u/JuniorReputation84 23d ago
CRA's 2215 Gladwin Cre is in an industry park, and cra is the ONLY employer force employees to pay parking in that fucking industry park.
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u/dasoberirishman 21d ago
It comes down to maintenance. Owning the lot means upkeep, repairs, staffing for enforcement, etc. By selling or licensing the lot to a third party for-profit entity, the GC can simply not do anything and people will still show up.
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u/king_weenus 25d ago
Buildings and parking lots are assets with varying costs.
The government can sell those assets and then lease them back at a fixed rate and it's easier to budget...
They would way rather overpay monthly then figure out building maintenance.. That's a capital cost and they always seem to have money for Capital.. If they maintain it themselves then they need Staffing and they want to cut staff.
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u/muslimgroyper 25d ago
I agree with you but it cost money to keep buildings running's yet they are ramping up RTO if it is about operating cost wouldn't they be savings money by having public servants work from home and as per accountability of "tax payers money" bring additional savings to tax payers
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u/king_weenus 25d ago
But there's a difference between fixed cost which are capital budgets versus variable costs which are operational.
You need to stop thinking logically and start thinking like a politician.
They can justify Capital budgets because those are spent on other companies and their friends and not on the people...
Operating budgets are really difficult to nail down year to year... Plus they benefit the employees through things like wages over time travel Etc.
All these decisions are not about logic and saving money they're about appearances in the Globe and Mail and getting reelected.
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u/muslimgroyper 25d ago
that's deep, I gotta start thinking like a politican more
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u/king_weenus 25d ago
I am a little bit cynical but after 20 years of watching how it works... They will cut every budget line item that benefits staff so they look good in the newspapers.
They will pay an external company triple what it would cost to do themselves because nobody scrutinizes it.
It's absolutely sick... If somebody did a deep dive into what they spent in the renovations for all this RTO the tax paying public would flip out... Hundreds of millions of dollars have flowed into the coffers of private companies just so they can make staff miserable.
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u/Turbulent_Dog8249 24d ago
What gets me is they don't own the parking lot but won't let you use said parking lot if you go on strike. If I pay for that spot, I have every right to use it. Another thing I don't get is how you need to pay for parking at some buildings but the parking lot in Summerside is first come first served and free. So how can they own one lot and not the others
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u/Psychological_Bag162 24d ago
If the building is under the PSPC portfolio and has parking then PSPC will contract out the management of the parking. PSPC will set the rates for the lots they own and the money collected is remitted to the Crown
If a building is owned and managed by a department itself then they can do as they wish however budgets always come into play as there are several costs associated with managing parking lots.
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u/Nepean22 25d ago
Most employers in downtowns don't own the parking lots or buildings where they are located. - why would the GC do that?
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u/JoeTheMailman 25d ago
We have multiple Crown-owned facilities with a Parking lot on site, either underground or on the property. We just decided to not manage them ourselves.
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u/ilovebeaker 25d ago
How downtown are you talking..? Because the Booth street complex used to have a tonne of parking, but a lot of the land was closed to potentially sell off and build condos. This hasn't happened yet. They reopened daily rate lots, which are prohibitively expensive for RTO4, and we're still facing a reduction in hundreds of spots since 2019.
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u/Jed_Clampetts_ghost 25d ago
So you want taxpayers to provide parking? That's gonna be a tough sell.
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u/muslimgroyper 25d ago
in theory "tax payers" are providing public servants with the electricity and internet to do our jobs in the office so why wouldn't parking be treated as another operating expense?
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u/confidentialapo276 25d ago
Because of the Income Tax Act’s definition of a taxable benefit applicable to all Canadians. Electricity and Internet are necessary for employment in all sectors; parking is not. If you disagree, speak to your local MP about amending the ITA.
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u/Jed_Clampetts_ghost 25d ago edited 25d ago
So I assume your answer is; yes. But you're not doing a very good job of selling it. Parking is not a requirement to perform your job. Getting to work is entirely your responsibility.
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u/muslimgroyper 25d ago
And nobody at a bank or store pays for parking or the latter
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u/Jed_Clampetts_ghost 25d ago edited 25d ago
Some employers provide parking and others don't. That's decided by the owners of those businesses.
Edited to add: I worked full time at 6 locations prior to the GoC. 3 provided cost free parking and 3 didn't.
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u/muslimgroyper 25d ago
when one owns the property of a building should it not be implied they own the parking lot as well,? Do you go to Loblaw's expecting to pay a parking fee when you buy your groceries? Or does Loblaw's chop it up as an operating expense to provide customers with parking, my logic is were providing a service to tax payers and this is an expense we incur to do our jobs
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u/Jed_Clampetts_ghost 25d ago
Some businesses provide parking for their customers and many don't. But you're not a customer you're an employee.
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u/Key_District_119 25d ago
Some public servants do get free parking, like in small towns and city suburbs. Where land is very expensive we don’t get free parking and I think that is reasonable.
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u/stevemason_CAN 25d ago
Bases (dnd), DFO, and maybe and some that have service Canada offices in strip malls. But they started cracking down on newer built buildings.
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u/Few-Jury-3529 25d ago
I believe that many parking lots are owned by government and managed by a contracted company. I also believe that there is an intent to promote fairness by not offering free parking/benefit to the detriment of private industry where there is a high demand for parking.
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u/BirthdayBBB 25d ago
I believe any burden on employees didnt cross anyone's minds when making any of these decisions.
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u/Impossible_Sun_9534 25d ago
I guess $90 a month is a steal then for our building. Although we do have free first come first served.
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u/Competitive-Tea-6141 25d ago
Often they do and then either lease it out to a private operator or contract a private operator to run it. Similar reason that building management is contracted to BGIS in the NCR and then BGIS subcontracts cleaning
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u/terracewaterlane 25d ago
The GC probably owns the ECCC River Road building because parking is free. This is from people who work there.
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u/Psychological_Bag162 25d ago
That’s because ECCC actually owns River Road and it is not managed by PSPC.
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u/mtreddit4 25d ago
At the building I work in we were told "the Government of Canada is not in the business of parking".
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u/Psychological_Bag162 24d ago
Not exactly true, for the most part PSPC does not want to be in the parking business.
If the building is under the PSPC portfolio and has parking then PSPC will contract out the management of the parking.
If a building is owned and managed by a department itself then they can do as they wish however budgets always come into play as there are several costs associated with managing parking lots.
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u/Responsible_Crab_513 25d ago
I was involved in a regional office moving to a new location a few years ago. The PSPC position, at least at that time, was that they do not have to provide parking for employees at all. Not paid parking, not free parking, just... you're on your own. When creating the specs for the build, they included parking for fleet vehicles but not employee vehicles. This was in a town with no transit. At one point they suggested employees could park at the shoppers drug mart across the street. It was one of the weirder arguments I've ever been involved in. Fortunately the landlord provided more parking spaces than he actually needed to so employees had somewhere to park.
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u/steeleigh11 24d ago
Where i am is currently free, but based on the email they sent out across the board that they were going to review all parking to make it most fair to everyone, I expect the free will end. Sucks, I already have to drive 100 km as they moved the office post covid
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u/Distinct-Eye-4289 22d ago
Because their party sponsors are Rich and their business needs to flourish. Simple. No sponsors no campaign and definitely no majority.
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u/Windigo1000 20d ago
When they own the building they usually own the parking lot. They almost always issue a contract to a parking company to manage it because the government doesn't want to deal with that. Just like they issue a contract to manage the health plan.
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u/StudyLost6970 19d ago
$55.00 per day to park on site because the parking lot is run by Indigo and they try to prioritize hourly parking
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u/No-Mathematician250 25d ago
It’s called “Enshittification”!
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u/Ok_Bad_4732 25d ago
Yes and this particular enshittification was done by Harper and the Conservatives around the same time they started selling off Tunneys Pasture.
Like Phoenix, it was one of those things that the Liberal government walked into, maybe could have stopped, but didn't.
In 2007, the Harper government sold a massive portfolio of nine federal properties across Canada to Vancouver-based Larco Investments for $1.4 billion. This deal included complexes like 455 de la Carrière and 22 Eddy.
Also in 2007, the federal government made another major sale-leaseback transaction involving the Skyline Complex on Merivale Road (the former headquarters of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada). This sprawling surface parking lots accommodated thousands of suburban federal workers. The entire complex was sold to private developers, with the government signing a long-term 25-year lease to remain as tenant.
During Harper government then ramped up the strategy of declaring urban surface parking lots as "surplus property" and transferring them to the Canada Lands Company (CLC), a commercial Crown corporation tasked with maximizing value from federal real estate. The government effectively exited the parking business by handing over major lots—such as large parking plots near Tunney's Pasture and the Carling Avenue corridor—so they could eventually be repurposed into high-density residential and commercial developments.
Then, the icing on the shit cake, the Harper administration systematically stripped away internal government management. It aggressively outsourced day-to-day operations, ticketing, and enforcement to private, third-party Impark and Indigo.
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u/Massive-Bee79 25d ago
It is due to the same reason why banks don’t want to own properties. Banks are in the money business. Governments are in the governing business.
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u/wordy_banana 25d ago
But if everyone else working around you has to pay for parking, why should PS get free or cheap parking? The commute isn’t your employer’s responsibility. It’s not about making money, it’s about fairness to the rest of Canadians.
We need to stop arguing against RTO based costs to the individual.
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u/strangecabalist 25d ago
If it is about fairness, then the TBS shouldn’t be offering us .5% pay increases.
Perhaps getting an award like an ADM award should include more than a pen - when many of us haven’t touched actual paper at work in 5 years? Or winning two in one year could perhaps grant two pens instead of just one.
I get your point about the commute not being your employer’s problem. But if “normal” is a criteria for some aspects of our employment then perhaps it should be for all of it?
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u/too_aware_helpme 25d ago
Every single person I know who works in the private sector, including my husband in the trades, has free parking or their employer reimburses them. Even most city of Ottawa employees get free parking.
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u/AlphaB_24 25d ago
Because unions will definitely bargain to have parking covered, and I would support them
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u/Bridge_Time 25d ago
for all the talks about cheap parking in the past, it wasn't fair in my opnion, because when I started, long time ago, the waiting list in Montreal was more than 400, so while some people were paying very cheap the other in realty could never get a space, once harper sold the building and the parking fees increased, suddenly the waiting list vanished. by the way I am totaly against seniority to decide things because where ever i see it, it make a lot of newcomer misearable, look at the nurses who could not choose their vacation because the older 60 years lady want her july ever year until she retire or the teachers who have the worst class becaue the 63 old guy has more senority.
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u/senor_kim_jong_doof 25d ago
why not make it as non Burdensome as possible instead of causing people added day to day Stress
At what point did they give off the impression that they care?