Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

What Is A Meeting? Municipal Councils And The Ontario Ombudsman : Draft, Andrew Sancton

Political Science Publications

Recent decisions by the Ontario ombudsman suggest that informal meetings of small groups of municipal councillors in which municipal business is discussed are in violation of Ontario’s Municipal Act. In this province the Municipal Act provides that, except in certain specified circumstances, municipal council and committee meetings must be open to the public. If a municipality has not appointed its own “closed meeting investigator,” the provincial ombudsman is charged with investigating complaints from the public about municipal meetings that have allegedly been improperly closed. Much hinges on the definition of a meeting. If “meeting” is defined too formally, then a …