Pour cette page en français, cliquez ici.
Welcome to the Council Watch webpage!
Council Watch is a volunteer-powered group coordinated by Ecology Ottawa that
- Identifies issues of ecological significance before Council
- Recommends actions for Ecology Ottawa and/or the Ottawa ecology community to take on these issues
- Publishes reports for the general public
Our goals with these activities are to increase the public’s awareness of ecological issues that come before Council, to empower the public with information to take ecological action, and to hold City Council accountable for their decisions.
Currently, we’re a group of around 15 volunteers. Apart from meetings of the entire City Council, we also monitor activities of the following committees/commissions: Environment and Climate Change, Transportation, Planning and Housing, and Transit. (See here for a complete list of committees.) We also monitor media and other reports of council activity.
We’re currently reviving Council Watch following a hiatus that included last fall’s elections. As we find our rhythm, we'll keep posting new reports below as well as other products that we think Ottawans will find useful—like our primer on City Council. (We recently published our page with contact information for Council and for committees that we follow!) If there are any other resources that you'd like to see, please let us know!
If you’d like to join us, find out more about the group, or send feedback, please contact the group’s current coordinator, William van Geest. We welcome a variety of participation, including watching meetings, writing reports, producing media, keeping records, translating, or webpage support.
In the meantime, if you’d like to watch City Council on your own time, here are few resources to get you started:
- Agendas and Minutes
- YouTube channel of all City Council meetings
- “How City government works” by the City of Ottawa
