Notes for Visiting your MP or MPP
- Your group needs to meet to
prepare. One person should act as team leader to co-ordinate, contact the
politician’s office, etc., make introductions and ensure that you don’t go
off-message at the meeting, and finally to ensure follow-up.
- Discuss in advance what
content you want to focus on (there is so much).
- Prepare detailed questions and
statements that you want to go over with the politician
- Ensure that you have written
background information to take to the meeting.
- Arrange the team going to
the meeting because different participants bring different areas of
expertise.
- Political parties have
different positions on various social justice issues. Find out the general
position of your politician’s party. (Your member may have an individual
position somewhat different, but would find it difficult to say so
publicly.)
- Contact the politician’s
office to arrange a meeting. This may take several telephone calls and/or
emails or faxes. Unless you get a meeting arranged immediately, follow up
with a written letter to the politician. Politicians are busy, spend much
of their time in Ottawa, and have other obligations that require travel
outside the constituency. We can’t be sure that a request for a meeting
actually got to them.
A letter to a federal politician needs no stamp (stamp required for
Ontario MPPs) if it is sent to:
Name of MP,
House of Commons,
Ottawa ON, K1A 0A6.
(Emails go free, too, but there are so many one may be ignored.)
- Members’ assistants tend to
be nice and helpful. Cultivate!
- Persistence may be required.
This is a very important and urgent cause.
- Arrange to meet briefly with
the group just before the scheduled meeting takes place, to review who is
doing what.
- At the meeting, introduce
yourselves and clarify how much time you have. Make sure that you get to
make your points within that time. Politicians may go overtime--some find
the opportunity to discuss the issues is helpful to them. You can’t
predict how a meeting will go. Discussions can ramble--bring the politician
back to the subject if he or she digresses too much. Be specific
about what you hope for on the part of the politician.
- Bring a written statement to
leave with the politician, a brochure, or another organization’s brochure.
You will doubtless be politely received. It is good to take notes (a tape
recording might be tacky). If the politician is keen and largely on side,
propose that he or she sponsor a “town hall” or community forum on the
issues, to help push the agenda. If your politician is not at all keen,
say you hope to change their mind, that this is urgent. Refer the person
to other sources, websites, etc. Keep the door open for another
visit. No party is saying or doing as much as is needed. So, wherever
your politician stands, try to get him or her to move further.
- If you are told that the politician
is doing everything already, ask if he or she has supported your
particular issue and how. If you get an absolute refusal, ask if the politician
has any “open hours” at his or her office, or when he or she might be
having a meeting or community forum that you could attend and ask your
questions publicly.
- Thank the politician for his
or her time.
- When you are well away from
the politician’s office, debrief. Analyze how it went. Consider how to
follow up.
- Follow up with a letter of
thanks for the politician’s time. (This helps to keep the door open for
another visit, by you, or others, or some combination of new blood and
you.)
Source: Excerpted and adapted from
Just Earth http://www.justearth.net/MP-meeting