Hey Leaf Rapids!
This week is RIGHT TO KNOW Week!
You have a right to know what your local government is doing. You can ask questions of the municipality and they have to answer almost all of them, within 30 days! Wow, access to information. Involvement in the democratic process, does it get any better? Well, only if you participate in the process...
You may want to sit down for this part, but you can also ask questions of your provincial government and check this out, the feds too. Yup, the federal government, the Canadian Federal Government, any question related to governing the people of Canada (you & me).
You can submit your question in many ways. By email, by snail mail, by fax or even a phone call. If the civil servant asks for the question in writing, then write it down and submit it. Make sure you have it stamped 'RECEIVED' and get a copy stamped as well. Write down the time & date and who you submitted the question(s) to. Now the clock starts ticking...
The local government office should provide an answer promptly, but some questions may require more research, so be patient. If you have any questions about the process, contact the Manitoba Ombudsman toll free @ 800.665.0531.

More on Right To Know Week:

Hungry for the truth
Manitoba can be a place of secrets. In this era of increased government accountability and transparency, Manitoba is a laggard compared to the steps the federal government and other provinces have taken to show their citizens the inner workings of how they operate. This week is Right To Know week, an initiative of the Canadian Association of Journalists, the Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation, the Manitoba Ombudsman, the Provincial Council of Women and the Manitoba Bar Association. These groups want to point out to Manitobans that our government — the one that spends more than $8 billion of our tax dollars every year — has one of the most inadequate and outdated Access to Information laws in the country.

The Manitoba government pledged two years ago to overhaul its Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA) so that it would place a greater emphasis on the information part and less on the privacy bit. A non-partisan committee reviewed the act and provided several recommendations to improve access to information, including adding an appeal process when access is denied and putting an arm’s-length body in charge of FIPPA requests.