The Ombudsman OntarioEvery municipality states every municipality should have a general complaint policy approved by council and posts a brochure titled, Tips for Municipal Complaint Resolution Policies. I was unable to find an Amherstburg Municipal Complaint Resolution Policy on the town’s website.
What is a complaint?
Ontario ombudsman
The Office of the Ombudsperson broadly defines a complaint as: An expression of dissatisfaction made to or about a public organization about some aspect of its programs, services or people where a response is explicitly or implicitly expected.
In the local government context, it is important to distinguish between a bylaw complaint and other complaints about the way their services are being delivered to the public. Most local governments have established processes for responding to bylaw complaints—enforcing bylaws and responding to bylaw complaints is a central part of a local government’s role. However, it is also in the best interests of all local governments to have an effective system in place to handle general complaints and concerns from the public apart from bylaw complaints.
The Ontario Ombudsman is an office of last resort so the first step is to complain to the municipality, the CAO for example and, if not satisfied, then complain to the Ombudsman by filling in a simple online complaint form.
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