Why is the City trying this new model?

Advisory committee members, City staff, and Council have all shared feedback that the City’s traditional advisory committee structure was not entirely satisfactory and could be improved to better meet the needs of participants and the City. Committee members, in particular, shared that they want to be able to provide the City with more meaningful input into projects, earlier in their development, and that they want to be able to see if and how their input influenced the outcome of the project.

The Assembly model – where members form a representative cross-section of the public and deliberate to find common ground in providing advice to government – has been used in BC, Alberta, Ontario, and internationally in countries such as the United Kingdom, France, Australia, and others.