Open and transparent communication from government to Canadians is vital and the proper dissemination of public notices assures that the public is informed about important changes that will impact their lives.
Requiring government to publish public notices in newspapers that are distributed and read widely in their communities, ensures access to information that could be vital to residents like public meetings, zoning changes.
“Local news matters to people. Your local tax bill, sports and recreation, traffic, parking, crime — all these things matter to you in a way that some metropolitan, provincial, national, international issues do not matter,” says David Price, publisher of the Westmount Independent and the Free Press, on the importance of public notices printed in the local newspaper.
“You can also affect your local environment more than you can others levels. And if you don’t know about it through a local paper, you’re disconnected, you don’t know what’s happening and you can’t impact it.”
Newspapers Canada has assembled a fact sheet on the importance of public notices. You can access it here.
