Building stronger communities through Public Engagement

Tell us how we can improve the City's public engagement strategy!

Every City decision affects residents, which is why public engagement plays an important role in decision-making. Public engagement is intended to help the City understand lived experiences, gather input and inform solutions that reflect the diverse voices in our community.

At the direction of Council, the City recently reviewed the 2013 Council-approved Public Engagement Strategy to consider updates for the first time in over a decade. Since the strategy was first adopted, the context for public engagement has changed significantly, including the impacts of COVID-19, social justice movements, emerging technologies, evolving public expectations, and increased skepticism toward government institutions.

While the way the City does public engagement has evolved over the years, there was no formal document that captured the changes. Over the last year, the City’s public engagement team met with project leads to hear about their learned experiences, researched best practices, reviewed results from the Engaging with you survey, and consulted with service areas including the Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging, Indigenous Relations, Accessibility, and more.

Collecting all this information, the team developed ten addendums to build on the original strategy with a goal of strengthening more meaningful, inclusive and accessible public engagement in the City. The updated strategy is intended to provide clearer guidance for project leads and establish more consistent standards for engagement. The approach is designed to make the engagement process more predictable, clearer, remove barriers and easier to understand.

The ten addendums highlight areas such as project communication and education, defining project constraints, cross-departmental alignment, equity, inclusivity and accessibility, performance metrics with Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and a commitment to ongoing review. A refreshed workbook has also been developed to support project leads in applying these addendums when planning their public engagement activities.

Now, it’s your turn to take a look at the proposed updates and provide your feedback. We’ve created a page on Engage Ottawa where you can explore the City’s process for public engagement, review the ten proposed addendums, and see the updated workbook. Tell us how we can improve the City’s Public Engagement Strategy. The survey is open until February 28, 2026, so don’t miss your chance to help shape how we engage with you and your community.

When people come together, incredible things can happen. Your input helps us design strategies that are inclusive, transparent, and effective. Let’s start out 2026 by working together!