Some Toronto employers are bringing back remote work during the World Cup
With hundreds of thousands of tourists on their way, it’s probably best to hide—ahem, work—away from the crowds
Employees in Ontario have been feeling the pressure to return to the office, especially since Premier Doug Ford’s orders insisting that, as of last January, government workers make remote work a thing of the past. (Global News later used a Freedom of Information request to discover that Ford had continued working from home while forcing civil servants back. That’s another story!)
But, with Toronto’s first World Cup matches now days away, some employers are letting people work flexibly in anticipation of terrible traffic.
“Team members will have the option to work from home on match days,” Caroline Stelmach, a spokesperson for Ubisoft Canada, told CP24.
The outlet also checked in with University Health Network, which oversees health care facilities including Toronto General Hospital, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre and Toronto Western Hospital. UHN, too, will consider some level of flexibility while ensuring that its hospitals remain adequately staffed.
Related: An everything guide to World Cup mania
Managers at the provincial government have been instructed to consider work-from-home requests on match days, and a City of Toronto spokesperson told CP24 that “divisions may take the FIFA World Cup 2026 match schedule into account when determining in-office attendance.”
With hundreds of thousands of tourists expected to visit Toronto for the World Cup, working from home does seem like the move. The city’s FIFA Mobility Plan, published in March, says the event will “substantially increase demand on the road and transit network, particularly on match days. Weekday matches will create significant congestion as post‑match crowds overlap with regular commuter travel, especially at Union Station and within the downtown road network.”
The only downside is that, if you don’t leave your house, you can’t secure a special-edition Toronto sports condom.
Carly Lewis is a journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times and the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Wired, Interview Magazine, Pitchfork, Elle, and Maclean’s, where she is a contributing editor. Her work has been recognized by the National Magazine Awards and the Digital Publishing Awards. She reports on city life, culture—including what people do online—politics, art and crime. She received the Dave Greber Freelance Writers Award for “The Murder of Ashley Wadsworth,” an investigative feature about a Canadian teenager who was killed by a man she met on social media, published by Maclean’s.
