The consolidation of Ontario…

The consolidation of Ontario’s 36 conservation authorities into seven regional conservation authorities brings about several concerns. While there may be some space for regulating and standardizing certain processes, each conservation authority has its own unique challenges and situations based upon differing land cover types and municipal partners. While I understand that things such as the permit process can be complicated for developers, consolidating conservation authorities is not the answer, especially with the currently proposed boundaries which would not solve all those concerns, particularly in the fast-growing Peel Region which would remain split between two different regional conservation authorities. Additionally, the scope of conservation authorities goes far beyond the permitting process which seems to be the sole focus of this consolidation. Conservation authorities provide a wide variety of local services from education programs to ecological inventories, monitoring and more. The most important of which might be source water protection, something best done on a smaller scale than regional conservation authorities would represent as they can be tailored to the specifics of each watershed; increasing the scale of this program would lead to lesser protections for drinking water leaving room for tragedies such as Walkerton to occur once more. Beyond drinking water protection, conservation authorities provide a wide range of services for local communities including education programs and other resources, volunteering opportunities, and probably most importantly, access to nature through their parks systems; once again, all programs that would be harder to provide at an increased scale. Finally, but certainly not least, there is the cost of consolidation to consider. Unifying databases and technology, consolidating organizational charts and ensuring equal positions are of equal pay and responsibilities, merging unionized positions with non-unionized ones, and the overall costs associated with rebranding which can be quite extensive. Overall, conservation authorities are so much more than permit providers and that needs to be taken into consideration with any changes made to their size and their scope. The current proposal creates far more concerns than benefits and should be overhauled to standardize the permitting process across conservations authorities rather than consolidating them into seven from 36.