While allowing CAs and…

While allowing CAs and municipalities to overlap more intuitively may reduce duplication of efforts, it will severely weaken the CA's abilities to maintain their standard of work. Critically, CAs are not only responsible for permitting and planning, but provide recreation and cultural programming, science and research, support for local environmental issues, and more. Many of these functions rely on a close relationship with the land they operate on. Expanding their boundaries and centralizing them will weaken the CAs' ability to have a workforce that understands and can act in the interest of their specific communities.

Moreover, the areas under the proposed new boundaries are very diverse culturally, ecologically, and industrially. A single project, for example, may include multiple watersheds and ecozones, and may impact various communities downstream. Having several, smaller CAs be a part of the consultation process will ensure each of those communities' needs are met.

The current government of Ontario has a track record of short-sighted environmental policy that, while offering short-term economic benefits, is causing long-term weakening of Ontario's agricultural, natural resource, and environmental resiliency. CAs are already limited severely by low funding, lack of government priority, and restrictive policies. This motion is very clearly not in the interest of CA staff or the communities they serve, but rather developers and non-local business expansions.

Permit decisions and consultations do need to be made quickly, but consolidation is not the solution. CAs need to be funded adequately to allow enough resources to not only make decisions, but to perform the critical science and monitoring duties to inform these decisions. It is very clear that this government does not prioritize ongoing research and monitoring, nor does it genuinely support the use of 'sound science' in decision making. CAs are simply the latest in a number of locally-organized bodies this government is seeking to eliminate in order to replace them with appointed, sympathetic - and often corrupt - bodies that will allow the Premier and his interests to bulldoze through local communities' interests for political and personal gain.