The needs of your family should always come first before taking the plunge into local politics. Be sure your spouse/partner/children have a realistic picture of potential impacts on family life and give them the opportunity to express concerns. The decision to enter politics is not yours alone and will spill over into work and family. Have that conversation up front and do regular check-ins after you get the job. Nothing is better than the feeling of trust and support from your family, so be mindful that you maintain those expectations.

As a local politician, you will face scheduling, conflict and unforeseen interruptions to your day-to-day life. Staying on top of your commitments is the key to managing the extra duties you have taken on. You will have to schedule time (1-5 hours per week) to prepare for meetings. Meetings can also run from 1-5 hours on meeting weeks. Returning emails and phone calls to constituents varies greatly depending on issues and can happen at any time. Official Council meetings are set out for the year at the start of every year, so there won’t be surprises.

After your first year in office, you and your family can gauge how life is working and adjust. Make hard rules as to when you return emails and phone calls and stick to them. Schedule family time and celebrations on your calendar well in advance and decline additional meeting invites, reschedule or make alternative arrangements.

The support of your employer from the start will alleviate a lot of stress as you figure out the nuances of working both jobs. You should discuss a plan of how you intend to keep municipal work out of the workplace and be prepared to make up extra hours if there are conflicts. You should also give your employer the opportunity to express any concerns that might blow back on the business. Divisive issues in the community can lead some people to retaliate on issues you made decisions about. Being a local politician is a part-time job. If you think there is potential to jeopardize your career, or your employer isn’t giving you the green light, that is a red flag that needs further reflection.

Family and employment are your immediate risks, discussed above. You will also want to consider legal liability risks that come with this position. You will want to know what they are in advance so that can be part of your decision to run.

Other risks include your personal wellbeing. How good are you at managing stress, dealing with conflict/difficult people, and accepting criticism for decisions made at Council? Putting yourself in the spotlight, speaking in public and being challenged to your face or on social media are all stressful activities. Depending on how you behave in certain situations, it can either hurt or help your personal brand in the community. Self-reflection about your leadership style and an ongoing commitment to improve in areas you are weak in will help you manage these risks.

Yes. It really depends on how active, opinionated and aggressive you are on social channels and what the online culture in your community is. Social media works both ways. The upside of promoting yourself freely, opens you up to often unwelcome behaviour online that can potentially get out of control.

You can mitigate harassment if you restrict your posting to promoting public events, public information, or upcoming concerns in the community that you are soliciting opinions about. Don’t engage online and offer your email address to posters that have specific complaints. People are quick to pile on negative comments and misinformation about local politics is rampant. There can be a happy medium for using social media, but it shouldn’t be your only method of communicating with your constituents. Some people in political life do not engage with the public on social media. You may want to consider that as an option.

Yes. There are a lot of rules that you should know before you make the decision to run for office.

There are rules and processes for registering as a candidate, advertising and signage, campaign finances, regional bylaws, municipal bylaws, provincial rules regarding conflict of interest and the municipal act. You can find this information online or speak to your municipal clerk's office.

You must get signatures from 25 eligible electors (voters) in the municipality or ward who endorse your nomination, and you must pay a nomination fee of $100 for councillors and $200 for heads of council (mayor or reeve). You cannot begin campaigning until the municipal clerk accepts your paperwork as complete. May 2, 2022, is the first day that you can file your nomination papers. August 19, 2022, is the last day to file.

Your municipal Clerk will provide an election package of information that will include important dates, rules around election finances, signage and relevant paperwork for successful filings. The municipal clerks are primarily responsible for running local elections and will be your best resource for answering questions.

Advertising and promoting yourself will make up the majority of your budget in any local election. How much you spend depends on how well known you are in your community. If you are starting your campaign with a low profile, it will cost you more to raise your profile. A traditional campaign for a councillor with signs, brochure, website, socials, advertising can range between $3,000 and $4,500. A Mayor’s campaign will cost more and vary from $8,000 to $12,000. There are spending limits. The municipal Clerk will calculate the spending limit for wards and mayor’s race and will be included in your election information package.

Not required, but it would be extremely helpful to share the workload. It is very time-consuming and cumbersome to run your own election campaign, but it does prepare you for the workload ahead if you are successful in your bid. Creating and organizing promotional materials, booking advertising, creating a website, managing signage and finding locations, answering questions, knocking on doors, mailing ... there are a lot of moving pieces and if you have people to help you, it will greatly reduce your stress. If someone is offering their assistance, take it.

In 2022, websites, social media and lawn signs are expected forms of promotion during elections. While online voting over multiple weeks has subdued the election day rush to the polls, many of the electorate still wait until the last day to vote, so sustaining your messaging is vitally important.

Find opportunities within your municipality to promote yourself where residents rely on getting local information. Do you have radio, television, a local podcast or newspapers in your market that can help you deliver your campaign pledges?

Taking your campaign door-to-door and meeting with residents will get you face time with residents. Hear about concerns directly from constituents that can also help you form your platform. Leave a door-hangar or flyer with information to your website so that they can find out more about you.

You’re considering running for local politics, so something has you motivated to run and you heard about it somewhere. Local media is a great source to keep track of community issues. You can also scour social media communities to see what concerns people are talking about. Make use of your municipality’s website and download the past year’s Council meeting packages. Download the current budget documents and read the executive summaries, business plan and strategic planning documents. These reports will give you a pretty good snapshot of the current issues and the approach the Council is taking. Also, check out the planning area to see what developments are on the immediate horizon. Again, you can reach out to the staff and ask for more information.

Most of the decisions you make as a member of council won’t make front page news or resonate with the public. Controversial decisions, increased spending, taxes, planning developments, funding issues are all part of the repertoire, but most of your decision-making won’t be that sexy.

Reading reports and weighing staff recommendations will take up a lot of your time. You will find that reporting to upper levels of government, approving purchases, new policies and hearing direct from community groups will make up portions of meeting time. As a member of council you can work with other councillors on topics of interest that will benefit the community.

Asking the public to respond with suggestions and comments can be a frustrating aspect of the job. Trying to reach a broad range of residents is difficult and public input is generally really low. You will hear from residents and groups that have a vested interest in the outcome of the decision, but generally the responses are fairly one-sided. That alone isn’t the best measure of whether a motion should pass or fail. The pros and cons need to be explored. Making sure you have all the information you need is key. Comments from people on social media are generally unhelpful. Request an email outlining the concerns so that the comments can be part of the public record. It will take work to hear from the public and using your community connections will be the key to being successful.

Every politician must be familiar with the Ontario Municipal Conflict of Interest Act before making decisions. This is an extensive and sometimes complicated piece of legislation that governs when elected people need to declare a pecuniary interest in a decision. Ignore the act at your peril. A simple accusation of impropriety can land you in court with personal legal bills. Only the elected politician can know if they are in a conflict and it is up to them to declare. No staff person or other member of the Council can make that determination for you. Depending on how involved you are in the community, or what business interests you hold, will determine when and if you remove yourself from discussion.

First and foremost, represent your constituents and your community. Be prepared for every meeting and seek help when you don’t have the answer. Always, always respond to inquiries and follow-up to make sure issues have been resolved. Good customer service goes a long way as a politician. Learning how the business of local government works is paramount to understanding how to work within it. Every aspect of local government is governed by bylaws and only Council as a whole is able to change them. Working with fellow council members and especially staff, will help you bring about the change you are looking for. Make good rational arguments that can be supported with facts to convince others that your way is worth considering. You have to put more than your words into the effort. It takes time, research and discussing with various departments to truly understand the implications of a decision. If you are prepared to put in the effort, you will be rewarded for being an effective politician.

It is in your best interest to develop and maintain positive relationships with municipal staff — they can be very helpful. As an elected politician, it is not in your purview to manage people and projects. Share concerns with superiors and let the day-to-day work carry on without comment from you. You will need staff support to work on behalf of resident concerns and to navigate the inner-working of local government. Council and staff are guided by a code of conduct that discuses the relationship between staff and Council members. Your goal is to improve your community and you need staff to help you do that, so make it work and everyone wins.

Traffic-calming, sidewalk and snow clearing issues, potholes are popular items that residents will call you about. Residents also bring bylaw complaints, issues with a recent interactions with municipal staff, or service delivery issues. Sometimes residents don’t know who to call about a problem they are having that isn’t municipal related. In those cases, do your best to point them in the right direction. Recent  or upcoming decisions that come before Council, taxes, ideas for new initiatives, advocacy groups will be commonplace throughout your term. You should be able to support the decisions you make using the facts and circumstances supporting the recommendation.

Once Council makes a decision that is approved at a council meeting, opposing members are to be able to articulate the justifications for the decision to the public. There is no winning and losing leaderboard for individual members. Not every decision you cast will be right, but if you feel strongly one way or the other, you should stand by your convictions and vote that way. You are sending a message to the electorate that you will be consistent in how you vote. Those who speak out against motions and then vote for them regardless call into question the integrity of their decision-making.

Yes. Municipalities do their best to provide a broad overview of the township services and processes once elected. Education sessions are scheduled to provide opportunities for questions about how to work within the system. Outside training from The Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) provides full-day training seminars that are very helpful and more detailed, providing better insight from sources outside your own municipality. It is highly recommended to make use of additional training opportunities. These costs are contained within the Council budget. There could be other opportunities for training that come along — if you can shorten your learning curve, you will be a valuable asset to the residents you serve.

When you get into politics, everything about you is fair game, whether that is fair or not.

You will want to think about the community profile that you want to project about yourself that is true to yourself, authentic and consistent. You share what you are comfortable sharing, but the electorate is going to want to know more about who they are potentially voting for. Your background, career path, basic family information are all fair items for people to learn more about you. The electorate really wants to know your ideas for improving the community and your ability to solve problems. If you have a track-record that demonstrates these skills, share it.

Woolwich Township Councillor: $20,709 (no benefits/pension)

Woolwich Township Mayor: $35,302 + WNH $13,175 + Region $45,615 + Committees (various honorariums) + benefits/pension

WellesleyTownship Councillor: $16,284 (no benefits/pension)

Wellesley Township Mayor: $30,035 + WNH $13,175 + Region $45,562 + Committees (various honorariums) + benefits/pension

Wilmot Township Councillor: $19,064 (no benefits/pension)

Wilmot Township Mayor: $35,160 + Kitchener Utilities $XX,000 + Region $45,562 + Committees (various honorariums) + benefits/pension

North Dumfries Township Councillor: $21,246 (no benefits/pension)

North Dumfries Township Mayor: $39,207 + Energy+ $16,700 + Region $45,562 + Committees (various honorariums) + benefits/pension

As a local politician, your speech is not protected within Council chambers or elsewhere. Using defamatory language, making accusations or insinuating malfeasance are serious and could land you a lengthy, expensive lawsuit. Every politician should be aware of the Ontario Municipal Conflict of Interest Act and the serious implications that are possible if you contravene the Act. Every municipality that owns and operates their own water systems shares a personal liability with politicians and senior staff members. Check with your municipality’s Clerk’s division to request what personal liabilities may come with a position on Council.

Local politics is non-partisan, but that doesn't preclude a politician/candidate from being active in provincial or federal politics. Many politicians are known to be associated with party politics and even their affiliation may contribute to forming their views. That is okay.

Decisions are made as a Council and should reflect the benefits for the community, not a political ideology. As a local councillor, you represent everyone in your municipality, and also share a broad spectrum of political viewpoints.

The potential to alienate a sector of the electorate with party affiliation is possible. Depending on your community, and the politics, it may benefit your candidacy. At the local government level, the electorate are voting for a person, so tell them exactly who and what you stand for. 

If you have trouble putting your thoughts into words in cohesive sentences, you wouldn’t be the first politician with those issues. Speaking in public, asking questions in meetings and being interviewed by the media are skills you can develop in time if you are committed to improving. Once you know the job, the information and the issues you are dealing with, speaking about them will come more naturally. Dedicate yourself to knowing what all the sides of the issue are and ask municipal staff to help you. They can be an amazing resource.

First and foremost, your campaign material should tell people who you are and what you bring to the role as a Councillor. Most candidates will speak to what they see as important matters to be considered by the next Council. In municipal campaigns, it is best to stick to those things which are within the role of Council and which you think you are able to influence. Sidewalks, recreation, traffic, local planning, and taxes are a few examples of local issues which you might like to raise as a potential Councillor at the township level. A candidate for Mayor may wish as well to raise Regional issues such as daycare, social services, policing, roads, and planning to name a few. It is best to research these before putting out materials or speaking on them as nothing will discredit a candidate faster than bad information and claims.

Know the rules before you accept any donations to your campaign. Period.

Campaign finance rules and reporting need to be done by the book to avoid problems after you file. Filing incorrectly can lose you the job you worked hard to get, and the electorate will second-guess their choice of you. If you are going to solicit donations to help fund your campaign, know the rules, the limits and make sure your paperwork is a true reflection of the campaign.

Receipts and dates are issued for campaign contributions, as well as the contributor’s name and address. Candidates can receive a maximum campaign contribution of up to $1,200 (records don’t have to be kept for cash contributions under $25, but they will have to be reported on your overall financial statement).

Traditionally, community organizations, service clubs and/or local business associations will organize and host a debate or meet-the-candidate evening for the public. The public has come to expect this type of interaction and it gives candidates the opportunity to demonstrate how they respond in a high-stress environment. If you know why you are running for Council, can demonstrate knowledge of the community's concerns and provide actionable solutions that you will champion, the public will reward you. Mayor’s races tend to have greater interest and the local Chamber of Commerce Associations tend to take the lead.

This depends on the community culture and whether there are divisive issues on the horizon. Generally, candidates speak to their own strengths, list their accomplishments, and provide solutions to problems in the community.

Competition to unseat an incumbent can turn ugly or a polarizing issue can set a more negative tone. Choose a tone that works towards building on the strengths of your platform. Negative campaigns have a proven track record, which is why you see this at higher levels of government. Be mindful of the tolerance of that type of approach within your community. It could draw sympathy for a rival or detract from the strengths that you offer.

Yes, respond. This is a free promotion and could potentially sway a voter to look closer at your candidacy. These organizations generally post your responses on a website and share them with their members. Be thoughtful in your answers, who knows how long they’ll be floating out there online. The second reason to respond, it will help develop your responses to questions and give you the opportunity to look at issues through a different lens. Business organizations will ask questions specific to their trade, as will environmental advocacy groups. If you get the job, you will be lobbied by different groups who want you to see an issue from their viewpoint. This is good practice and will give you more decision-making input that may help form your opinion.

Mileage, phone, technology, meeting costs and training expenses are covered by the Council’s budget. Conferences, travel accommodations and meal stipends are also available for council members.

The most important lesson you will learn when dealing with the public — listen. Sometimes, listening will be the only service you will be able to provide in a given situation, but it will be your most powerful tool as a local politician.

Most of the interactions you will have with the public will be respectful in tone and nature. There are some personalities, however, that even the most patient person could have difficulty navigating. If you have established a method and approach to resolving resident concerns, then stick with it. Communicate with the complainant about the methodology of your approach to the problem and give next steps. In most cases, you will have to follow up after investigating and receiving additional information. Don’t be quick to take sides from someone calling you agitated. Information may be incomplete with key details missing. Those details may change how you view the situation. Once you have all the information and are comfortable with its accuracy, proceed to explain how you assess what you know. Don't let complaints fester too long, be consistent with approach and listen.

You can always direct unhappy constituents to register as a council delegate to pitch their grievance.

Social media can be your friend or your foe. Your online behaviour should match what people expect of you face-to-face. The behaviour displayed by keyboard warriors active in every debate, casting judgments and championing controversy will clash with your duties as a politician. Once elected, you are bound by your municipalities’ Code of Conduct. Speaking of your colleagues in a demeaning manner will get you a special investigation from the Integrity Commissioner. The public will tire of politicians constantly under investigation, and it is taxpayer money that funds those reports. Social media’s reach at the local level is generally irrelevant, so don’t make dumb things you say there take away from the important work being done on behalf of your constituents.

Your municipality generally schedules 2-3 meetings a month that might either be Council or a Committee of the Whole.

Woolwich: Meets Mondays at 7pm. Three-week rotation and then a break. No meeting after a long weekend and the month of July is off.

Wellesley: Meets Tuesdays at 6:45pm

Wilmot: Meets Mondays at 7:00pm

North Dumfries: Meets Mondays at 7:00pm

Yes. Your municipality could have a variety of Committees of Council that a member is generally chosen to participate in. Depending on your municipality and committee structure, you will likely end up joining one or more. Typically, there are committees for heritage, environment, planning, airport, Business Improvement Areas, recreation advisory, Committee of Adjustment, animal control and more. Check with your municipality to find out more.

In 2022, the capability to search for specific data will be a keyboard taps away. Most municipalities have a trove of information available online and finding relevant sources for your research can be done from home. Your municipal staff are going to be your best resource in most cases. Municipal staff belong to associations and dedicated online chat groups of like-minded employees who share their resources with each other. Ask staff.

No. You will get familiar with a bunch of them by the nature of the complaints you receive. It isn’t imperative to be able to recite bylaws verbatim, just have a general idea and outline of ones you will come across more often than others. These will be learned on the job.