Is a four-day work week a high-five model?

If Ontarians didn’t know who Steven Del Duca was a few days ago, they know who he is now: the guy who could make every weekend a long one.

On Sunday, the provincial Liberal leader said that if he defeats Ontario premier Doug Ford in the 2022 election, he’ll launch a pilot project to explore the feasibility of a fourday work week in Ontario.

It’s a smart move. Everyone is burned out from the federal election (not to mention from working five days or more during a pandemic).

It’s hard, therefore, to think of any other policy idea that would perk voters’ ears up right now.

An extra long reprieve from work? Who doesn’t want to think about that? I wouldn’t be surprised if the idea moved the premier himself to daydream about the possibility of consistently pulling up to the cottage a day earlier than usual.

The four-day work model is growing in popularity around the world, at least in the trial phase. Other countries to consider an extended weekend with no cuts to workers’ pay include Spain, Scotland and Iceland (in the latter case, the model proved both popular and successful, productivity-wise).

A Toronto recruitment company recently tried it out to similar success. Its CEO told CTV News the switch was beneficial to productivity and worker well-being, and that she plans to make it permanent.

But what would such an idea look like in post-pandemic Toronto? And even if a future provincial government went for it, would the rest of us?

According to a spokesperson from the mayor’s office, while Toronto mayor John Tory hasn’t looked into the idea in detail, “A myriad of issues from traffic to climate change to the ‘work from home’ experience during the pandemic will probably lead all of us to have a broader examination of flexibility in how people work and the Mayor would look forward to actively participating in that discussion.”

As far as employers go, William Strange, a professor of economic analysis and policy at the Rotman School of Management, wonders if they will come around to the idea of a shortened work week in the same way many came around to the idea of remote working.

Strange says the four-day model could “potentially benefit a downtown-oriented city like Toronto” because it would mean “fewer people on the roads and subways. We know the roads are insanely crowded. It’s a huge financial cost, and environmental cost. If people aren’t getting into their cars one day in five, that reduces a lot of that.”

He does clarify, however, that the model would probably work best to ease congestion if the additional day off wasn’t uniform across the job sector; if some downtown businesses settled on taking Fridays off, others Mondays off, and others a day in the middle of the week.

“We can’t afford more backlogs on highways,” Ford said at a recent news conference in support of his controversial highway 413 that would, according to the Star’s Robert Benzie, “raze 2,000 acres of farmland, cut through 85 waterways, and pave over some 400 acres of protected greenbelt land in Vaughan.”

“We need more people to get from Point A to Point B in a much more faster fashion so that they can spend time with their families and we can transport goods,” Ford said.

In other words, the premier is advocating that we damage the environment so that we can reduce congestion and get people home to their families.

But what if there is another way? What if we seriously considered the merits of a four-day work week — a model that would not only reduce road congestion and increase family time, but benefit the environment instead of devastating it?

There are countless questions about how the four-day work model would operate in Ontario, one of them being “how could everyone benefit?” Simply put, they probably couldn’t.

“The vast natures of work across all sectors don’t allow for a one-size-fits-all approach to this,” says Scott Schieman, a sociology professor at the University of Toronto researching work, stress, and health among Canadians.

The divide between those who can and can’t work from home “really came to the surface” during COVID, Schieman says.

Despite its clear environmental benefits, he wonders if the four-day work week would “contribute to further divides along those lines” in this context, between those who get the extra day and those who don’t.

This is why Toronto city councillor Mike Layton has more “questions than answers” on the subject.

What about teachers? What about low-income shift work? “I want to know that it puts workers first and is fair so everyone can enjoy time with their family and friends, not only those with stable incomes.”

I want to know these things, too. But I think the idea is worth seriously exploring even if it raises more questions than answers.

There’s no doubt that pandemic aside, climate change is the biggest challenge Toronto will face in the coming years, because it exacerbates every challenge the city already faces, from heat waves to the housing crisis.

But we have before us a policy idea that could potentially injure two birds with one stone: climate change and worker burnout. It’s worth looking into, to say the least.