Lobbying – Meeting with Your Local MPP
Meeting with your local Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) is a powerful, personal way to get your point across.
These tips for MPP meetings were adapted from a lobbying toolkit created by the ODSP Action Coalition.
1) If you don’t know who your local MPP is, here’s how to find out:
Go to the Elections Ontario lookup page and use your postal code or address to look up the name of your Electoral District.
Then, go to the Elections Ontario addresses list and look up that Electoral District to get the name of the MPP.
The addresses list will also give you the contact information for their Constituency Office – which is where you want to call.
2) Arrange for the meeting.
Call your MPP’s Constituency Office to arrange an appointment to meet. MPPs are usually available on Fridays in their offices. If the Legislature isn’t sitting, they are available most workdays.
Sometimes several phone calls are necessary to get a date. Don’t be shy about being persistent!
Once the meeting is set, let the office know who will attend.
3) Decide who will attend the meeting.
It is a good idea to bring other people along – although it’s best not to invite more than two or three people.
It’s also best for all the people who attend the meeting to live in the MPP’s Electoral District.
If you receive OW or ODSP, you might invite supportive people who work for a local agency, own a local business, or are local community, religious, or cultural leaders.
And if you are an activist, an agency worker, a community member, or a friend or supporter of a person living on OW or ODSP, make sure to invite at least one person with lived experience of the social assistance system to the meeting. And make sure that person has time to speak.
4) Preparing for the meeting.
Find out how long you’ll have to meet with the MPP. 15 to 30 minutes is standard.
Make sure you know the most current information about the Social Assistance Review. Check our News and About pages for up-to-the-minute information.
Telling your MPP about your lived experience of OW or ODSP can be hard, so you may want to make a few notes beforehand so that you remember what to say. And encourage the other people who are attending the meeting with you to do the same.
Make sure to arrive a few minutes early for the meeting to give yourself time to get settled.
5) During the meeting.
Be assertive rather than aggressive. Being assertive will win you more respect. Try not to get into arguments. Focus on solutions rather than complaints.
Tell your story of how OW or ODSP has failed you or stopped you from reaching your full potential.
Tell them what a good social assistance system with meaningful supports and opportunities would look like.
And tell them that they should honour the all-party commitment to poverty reduction by insisting that the Social Assistance Review:
- creates opportunities for the voices of low-income people to be heard
- identifies and addresses the most punitive elements of the system immediately
- re-imagines and creates a system for the longer term that moves people out of poverty by offering meaningful and appropriate resources and programs
- starts soon – Ontarians need and are entitled to a social assistance system that really works.
6) What to ask the MPP to do specifically.
If your MPP is a government Cabinet Minister, ask them to support a transformative Social Assistance Review in Cabinet meetings.
If your MPP is a Liberal MPP, ask them to bring up the need for a bold and broad Review in one of their caucus meetings.
If your MPP is a member of an opposition party (the NDP or the Progressive Conservatives), ask them to demand a transformative Review in Question Period in the Legislature.
Ask your MPP to write a letter to the Minister of Community and Social Services supporting your call for a bold and broad review, and asking her to respond. Ask them to CC the letter to the Premier and the Minister of Children and Youth Services.
7) Follow-up.
Send your MPP a follow-up letter thanking them for meeting with you, summarizing the content of the meeting, and confirming what the MPP agreed to do.
At a later date, call the MPP’s office to see if the MPP followed through on any promises they made.
