Hey everyone.

I live in a small Manitoba town in Canada at the moment, and I'm on something called the 'Opinion Think Tank', which I can almost guarantee is a name someone's child came up with several years ago. We come together every three (!!!) months to discuss issues with a single council member of the municipality. Typically, these issues are already things that have been decided on by the rest of the council and the purpose of this get together is lost to me.

We literally spend our time providing opinions for things that... Well, can't be changed.

This got me thinking about the 'bigger picture'. The think tank is really just the people who are friends with the council members, excluding me. I was put on as a show of generosity as I know everyone and everyone knows me through my line of work in the area. The council members are the most wealthy/influential of the town. Typical rural politics in my experience.

However, the way these two bodies interact is something that is a bit of a mystery to me. Everywhere else that I have lived, we have monthly, if not biweekly, gatherings in some building downtown to discuss problems in the town, what we can do to solve them, and then address them with the council members either via flyers, addressed letters, or a genuine get-together at a scheduled date. At no point is there a total disconnect between the two parties that results in the council doing whatever they want and the folks with initiative remain stuck with their unanswered opinion.

I want to change this. But how?

I was thinking of investing the money in a few months or next year into flyers, and passing them out into all letterboxes around the town encouraging everyone to get together at a solidified date every month to discuss what we want to get done in the town, what our concerns are, and how we'll solve them. I am totally not clued in with the ethics behind flyer distribution, though.

Can there be legal backlash with distributing flyers? Do you need a license to do so? Will the post office (or rather, the mailman) do this for me or must I go to each letterbox by myself?

Furthermore, what other options do you guys have experience with in your own neighbourhoods? I'm definitely open to any suggestions as I'd love to become more involved with the matters in my town, and actually having some of a say in things. We sell a lot of food and factory parts to the city, as well as maintain a thriving farmer's market that gets traffic from the entire county each week. It would be nice to control what happens around the town, such as health hazards, events that would destroy crops, and countless other scenarios that impact how we live and what we do.

I feel that expanding the level of discussion we have in my town will have a significant impact on several things: Inviting businesses to the town, controlling harmful environmental threats, and preventing legal disaster with members of the community. It has happened before that the council accepted a business into the town only to have it flop because it didn't align with what the town needed or wanted.

Thanks beforehand for anything you have in mind! I'm totally interested in becoming more of a speaker in this town after I deal with my housing issues.

This is a uk website so you aren't likely to find anyone with knowledge of Canadian law.

Here we have democratically elected councils voted on according to their policies to deal with local issues.

This is a uk website so you aren't likely to find anyone with knowledge of Canadian law.

 

Here we have democratically elected councils voted on according to their policies to deal with local issues.

Our councils are democratically elected, as well. There were two questions in the post, however. One of law and one of ideas, so I think it's still quite valid to be posted here! Right?