In Ontario, thousands of public servants seeking flexible work arrangements have encountered significant barriers.
Authors
- Megan Ingram
PhD Student, Social Practice and Transformational Change, University of Guelph
- Carla Rice
Professor and Canada Research Chair, Department of Family Relations and Applied Nutrition, University of Guelph
After the government announced that all public service employees would return to full-time in-person work as of January, more than 16,000 members of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union and the Association of Management, Administrative and Professional Crown Employees of Ontario requested alternative work arrangements.
Members of the latter union submitted more than 5,500 requests, but only about 250 have received responses. Approximately 90 per cent of those responses have been denials, prompting concerns about “blanket rejections.” This approach is concerning, considering that more than one-third of employed Canadians with disabilities report having an unmet need for workplace accommodation .
Against this backdrop, Ontario’s response to the 2026 FIFA World Cup is revealing. To ease anticipated traffic and transit disruptions, the province introduced temporary exemptions to its return-to-office mandate, giving managers discretion to approve remote work arrangements. As Ontario Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy explained at a June 3 news conference , “there’s flexibility, there’s allowance for circumstances and this is an example of one of those accommodations.”
The contrast is difficult to ignore. The province has shown that it can permit remote work when traffic congestion creates barriers. Why, then, do disabled workers continue to face resistance when seeking flexibility as an accommodation?
Our research offers insight into this question. We interviewed 50 Ontarians living with episodic disabilities – including multiple sclerosis, long COVID, lupus, mental health diagnoses and other illnesses characterized by fluctuating periods of wellness and impairment – about their experiences with work, accessibility and inclusion.
Participants repeatedly described skepticism toward flexible work arrangements. Their experiences reveal how systemic ableism continues to shape whose requests for flexibility are considered legitimate and whose are not.
Remote work as a condition of inclusion
Remote work has become increasingly contested in Canada. The proportion of Canadians working primarily from home has fallen to a post-2020 low of just over 17 per cent, despite widespread employee preference for flexible work arrangements.
Yet for many of the 3.8 million working-age Canadians living with episodic disabilities , workplace flexibility is not a perk but a condition of meaningful inclusion.
For many participants in our study, working from home was critical to maintaining employment. Remote work allowed them to pace their energy, complete care tasks that supported their ability to work with dignity and work in accessible environments, including from bed.
This flexibility enabled participants to contribute more consistently and effectively and, for some, to remain employed at all.
One participant explained:
“When we’re not feeling 100 per cent due to…our condition, I think there should be an option to work from home… because being physically in the workplace wouldn’t be conducive to starting to feel better…but if I was able to…be lying down while working at my computer, while at home, I totally would be able to put in a full day of work.”
Skepticism toward disabled workers
Despite existing research indicating broad employee desire for flexible work and participants’ accounts of its benefits, employer resistance to remote work was a recurring theme in our interviews.
Participants described experiencing both overt and subtle forms of ableism in formal accommodation processes and everyday workplace interactions.
Many reported outright denials of accommodation requests, including requests for remote or hybrid work. Others described lengthy and intrusive investigations into the legitimacy of their disabilities. One participant’s employer had notably requested more than five years of medical records and sensitive therapy notes.
Participants also highlighted everyday attitudes and interactions that signalled flexible work was unwelcome. Most said that requests for flexibility, or simply disclosing a disability, were followed by increased surveillance, disbelief about the legitimacy of their needs or indirect reprisals.
Underlying these experiences were enduring stereotypes that disabled workers are less productive, less committed or exaggerating their disability to secure “special treatment.” As one worker noted: “I am aware that people are watching me…and asking why I get special treatment for certain things.”
The hidden costs of accommodation
Securing an accommodation did not necessarily end workplace scrutiny or scapegoating. Participants said accommodations were sometimes accompanied by heightened monitoring, skepticism and repeated, condescending reminders about performance expectations, even when their productivity remained unchanged or improved.
The impact was so severe for one worker that they chose not to use the accommodation they needed:
“When no one sees me, because I’m at home, they might even question ‘how come you only did this’ and the harassment is going to increase, so I say no. I don’t need to work remotely.”
To navigate these dynamics, participants developed creative strategies to accommodate and advocate for themselves at work. While strategies varied – some opted to fully disclose their disabilities and others disclosed nothing – one fact remained clear: Navigating workplace resistance and hostility required additional emotional, administrative and advocacy labour from participants who were already managing fluctuating energy levels.
Allowances for whose circumstances?
Our participants’ experiences illustrate how systemic ableism can operate in Canadian workplaces. Their stories also show that return-to-office justifications centred on collaboration, mentorship and workplace culture can overlook the unequal effects of rigid office mandates on disabled workers.
Our research reveals how skepticism about disabled workers’ productivity, both in and out of the office, continues to shape accommodation processes and workplace interactions. Their accounts also show how, when disability is involved, flexibility is often treated as something that must be earned, proven and monitored.
This contrast was especially visible in the FIFA World Cup exemptions , which gave managers the authority to “approve ad hoc, occasional or temporary remote work requests to provide short-term flexibility” to avoid traffic and transit congestion.
The exemptions demonstrate that working arrangements can be adapted when a barrier is treated as sufficiently urgent. By contrast, disabled workers in our study experienced skepticism, surveillance and procedural hurdles when seeking flexibility.
Whose barriers warrant action?
The issue is not simply whether organizations can accommodate remote work. They have demonstrated that they can. The real question is why workplaces are willing to adapt to temporary inconveniences such as traffic congestion yet remain reluctant to remove barriers that prevent disabled people from participating fully in the workplace.
Disability scholars and activists have long argued that exclusion arises from environments and institutions that fail to accommodate human variation.
Viewed in this light, our participants’ experiences raise a fundamental question of workplace justice: whose barriers are considered worthy of action?
As one participant puts it, “at the end of the day you’ve still gotta produce, produce, produce.” Their observation captures the pressure many disabled workers face to demonstrate their value before gaining access to the flexibility that makes their participation possible.
