In my previous column, I promised this one would make the case for where Landscape Ontario (LO) is heading from a governance perspective. Time to deliver.
The question I keep hearing — at chapter visits, in emails, in side conversations after meetings — is some version of this: a smaller provincial board sounds more efficient, but won’t we as members lose our voice?
It’s the right question to ask. And the answer is what convinced me that taking steps to build a tighter, more efficient board is the right direction to take.
Most governance consultants you talk to in 2026 recommend the same thing: go all member-at-large. Strip out regional and sector seats. Build a smaller board chosen for skills rather than representation. They argue this yields faster decisions, cleaner governance and easier recruitment. It’s a defensible recommendation and many associations have gone that way.
We didn’t want to.
Trading representation for speed isn’t an upgrade — it’s a different organization. The regional chapters and sector groups at LO aren’t decorative. They’re how we know what’s actually happening with our members — from job sites in Ottawa to growers in London. Losing that connection at the board level would be a real cost, and one we’re not willing to pay.
Tecker International — the governance consultants who have informed a lot of our thinking — see it differently from many in their field. Their experience with member associations like LO is that hybrid boards do the best job of balancing size, representation and the ability to actually get things done. Not the smallest. Not the largest. Designed deliberately.
That approach matches what the broader research on board effectiveness keeps showing: boards work best when they’re sized for real strategic dialogue, when every seat has a clear purpose and when the structure around the board — committees, councils, working groups — does what it’s actually designed for. A 26-person board can’t have a strategic conversation. It can only take turns sharing.
The other half of the design is what I think gets less attention than it should: structured advisory councils for our regional chapters and sector groups. Their voices don’t shrink under this model. They get sharper, more focused and more visible. A dedicated council does the work a 26-person board, trying to be everything at once, simply cannot do well.
That’s the case in principle. The bylaw committee is now working through the specifics, and in my next column I will share the revised structure we’re proposing to bring to members for a vote at the association’s annual general meeting in January 2027.
The trade we won’t make is the one between voice and capacity. LO 2.0 is the design that gives us both and we’re building it together.
Lindsey Ross
LO President
president@lglinc.ca
