Reducing the amount of…

Reducing the amount of Conservation Authorities does not solve problems.

Conservation Authorities are established in wide reaching enough areas, they do not need to be consolidated.

What pur Conservation Areas need is better access to funding and staff.

Reducing the amount of Conservation Authorities will not speed up the permitting process.

Having worked at a few, the permitting process is typically complex because of site visits and too many responsibilities shared between too few staff. Consolidation of Conservation Authorities will not solve this problem.

By increasing the service area of one organization, you are introducing problems in terms of staff avaliabilty and location, base of operations avaliablity and location, budgeting constraints that would have to be shared by one organization instead of spread across several. Not to mention difficulties in equipment acquisition.

There are already frameworks in place for the coexistence of the existing Conservation Authorities. Reducing their numbers only guarantees that projects are going to slop through the cracks, increase the work burden on permitting staff, as well as monitoring and science observation staff.

Municipalities are already stretched I terms of what support they can provide for their Conservation Authorities and the projects they need to have done. By decreasing the number of them that exist you are either, not changing anything except hierarchy which won't solve problems as different supervisors may be in different places, or you are ensuring that Municipalities will not be able to have their service needs met.

This is not sharing the wealth. This is stretching thin. And this is a system that is already stretched to it's limit.

Please reconsider.