In the context of the federal government forcing all of its employees to work four days a week in the office, almost every single car, bus and truck is forced to use the exact same bridge (Portage) at the exact same times. This results in massive traffic that grinds everything to a halt, clogs major road arteries, and dissuades anyone from wanting to go to downtown Ottawa (notice how this is counter to what the government is trying to achieve?). It further creates massive traffic even far away from Portage, as it forces the majority of cars, buses, and trucks to have to converge on the exact same local roads and/or highway lanes in order to reach the one bridge that can handle more than a pittance of traffic. 

This is not a system that is coherent or acceptable. 

An Eastern bridge would allow those in the Gatineau sector who are going to downtown Ottawa to head south first to cross the river. This would relieve local circulation by not forcing every single vehicle to converge on the same eastbound roads to the same direction. It would also allow a greater variety of places to get off buses and enter Ottawa, reducing the massive traffic caused by every single bus entering Ottawa to hit the same stops. Another benefit would be that the whole city would not have to come to a grinding halt every single time repairs on Portage Bridge or the Gatineau highway require a lane to be shut down. 

While I generally agree with the sentiment that this would not be necessary if the federal government did not do an about-face on the remote work that generally approved employee well-being, increased productivity, and stimulated diverse local economies around the country, we clearly don't live in a world where decision-makers are ready to accept that. Therefore, we need to actually look at the crumbling, overloaded and bloated transport systems that people are being forced to increasingly over-burden, and make them make sense. That means an Eastern Bridge.