Local services boards provide important public services to Ontarians living in areas without municipal government. Local services boards collect taxes and can provide services like garbage collection, water and sewer services, road maintenance, public library or recreation programs, and more.
Open meetings and the Ombudsman’ s role
As of August 1, 2025, the Northern Services Board Act requires meetings of local services boards to be open to the public, with narrow exceptions. This means that members of the public should be able to attend meetings and watch decision-making in action.
A part of a meeting may be closed for certain exceptions. If someone believes a meeting was closed and it shouldn’t have been, or the board didn’t comply with the open meeting rules, the Ombudsman may be able to review or investigate the issue. The Ombudsman is the closed meeting investigator for complaints about all local services boards.
When can a meeting of a local service board be closed?
A part of a meeting may be closed to the public if the discussion involves:
- Personal matters about an identifiable individual;
- Litigation or potential litigation;
- Advice subject to solicitor-client privilege;
- Information explicitly supplied in confidence to the board by the federal government, a province or territory, or a Crown agency; or
- A position, plan, procedure, criteria, or instruction for negotiations by or on behalf of the board.
A meeting must be closed when the local services board is discussing an ongoing investigation by the Ombudsman or a request under freedom of information legislation.
You can make a complaint about a closed meeting of a local services board here.
The Ombudsman has created a tip card about these rules. The open meeting rules for local services boards are similar, but not identical, to the open meeting rules for municipal bodies in the Municipal Act, 2001.
Tip-card - Closed meetings: Tips for Local Services Boards
The Ombudsman also deals with complaints about closed meetings in municipalities and school boards.
You can read about them here:
Closed meetings in municipalities Closed meetings in school boards