Ottawa's city councillors for the area, as well as other east-end groups and business owners, agree.

Commercial real estate firm CBRE is pushing for the federal government to shift a portion of its office space into Orléans.

Innes Ward City Councillor Laura Dudas supports the idea, saying a significant number of federal government employees currently commute from the area to downtown.

"Orléans is ready to be the home of a Government of Canada collaborative workspace," agreed Mathew Luloff, City Councillor for Orléans. "Thousands of our residents spend precious hours away from their families sitting on the highway in traffic, forced to cross the Greenbelt twice a day. Together, we can change that."

The firm says Orléans sees around 80 per cent of residents leaving the area for work, while only 20 per cent of local employees are entering the area from other parts of the city.

Light rail transit is scheduled to launch in Orléans in 2025. But the Capital 2020 Task Force, local business owners and private sector employees, have raised serious concerns that trains will be empty coming into Orléans, except at rush hour in the early evening.