The latest Provincial…

The latest Provincial Government proposal, would create the Ontario Provincial Conservation Agency OPCA – a provincial board-governed oversight body. The stated benefit of the OPCA would be to provide centralized leadership, efficient governance, and strategic direction. It seems, however, that the OPCA duplicates functions that already exist. Each conservation authority already has its own board of directors composed of appointed municipal officials. The province, through the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks, oversees the Act and provides policy direction, while the local board makes decisions on programs and operations that are specific to its watershed. The conservation authority is already accountable to its Board, to the municipalities that it serves and to the provincial government. It’s not clear, therefore, how inserting another layer of management oversight will improve efficiency. Yet it almost certainly will make the CAs less responsive to local conditions and municipal needs.

The consolidation of Ontario's 36 conservation authorities into 7 is also a concern. The intent is to have fewer organizations with standardized policies and reduced fragmentation that would ostensibly streamline approval of development applications. Fewer organizations covering the same geographical area, however, means that each organization would, of necessity, be larger than what exists today. It’s not clear how this would improve organizational efficiency.

Managing watershed health is complex and science and technology dependent. Assessing existing and new risks often involves technical analysis, perhaps even field study that is often watershed specific. Therefore the process of permit approval may appear unnecessarily cumbersome and non-standardized to external agencies. But protecting watershed health is critically important to the long-term health and well-being of Ontarians and should not be rushed for the sake of meeting short-term development objectives. It’s not clear how the processes will be more efficient by consolidating the number of conservation authorities and giving each more responsibility.

Also, one size does not fit all when it comes to watershed management. Rural and urban characteristics drive a very different set of needs, and watersheds with different geographies, topologies and hydrology experience different types of risks and requirements. Lumping these together will be unlikely to yield efficiencies. Local watershed requirements will be subverted to the needs of large land developers, even more so than the imbalance that exists today. And any possible standardization or economies of scale could be driven by the Ministry without the need to go through the upheaval and costs associated with a reorganization of this magnitude.