Thank you for your question.
You may have seen that we published the most recent health and safety guidelines yesterday, in partnership with Health Canada. This means we can consider a gradual return, after Omicron and what has happened in recent weeks. According to what was very clearly announced yesterday in our communications, the return must be cautious and gradual, and must adhere to certain health and safety rules that our Health Canada colleagues have provided to us. Each deputy minister, as the person in charge of their organization, must ensure that gradual return to work plans are implemented with this in mind.
In addition, we see this as an opportunity to rethink how we do things and review the plans. In light of the experience of the last two years, we understand that there will not be a uniform approach throughout the public service.
The public service is decentralized and its operations are complex and diverse. Each department, with the support of the team working with the head of human resources, who provides the guidelines, is now preparing its plan and how it will be implemented.
It will be done gradually, to have what we can call a hybrid return, but most importantly a flexible one. We have learned from experience, and the plan will be based on experimentation. We are not the only ones who are going through this.