Ontario’s unique network of…

Ontario’s unique network of conservation authorities was created nearly 80 years ago, by a Progressive Conservative government in the wake of the devastating Hurricane Hazel. The agencies work to reduce the risks of natural hazards like flooding, erosion and drought, and to ensure development doesn’t overtax the local watershed and landscape. Essential work to prevent life-threatening and economically expensive threats.

Now, the proposal to amalgamate them into 7 - 19% of their current number - is jeopardizing the important work these agencies do. How can 7 agencies do the work of 36, or pay attention adequately to the massively increased area of land and water they will be responsible for? And while the environment minister has repeatedly promised no change to the agencies’ mandate and no layoffs, such promises have been broken before. Conservation authorities have long been in this government’s crosshairs and have suffered multiple downgrades. For instance, their funding was slashed by half from a meager $7.4 million in 2019 after being told by the Ford government that "the province 100 per cent supports them". Not long ago, the government even handed itself the ability to override the authorities' powers - overriding, again I reiterate, the work done with best scientific knowledge in what will help protect the public from natural disasters becoming more and more common and severe under climate change.

We're facing overlapping crises in staggering biodiversity loss with extinction rates hundreds of times faster than natural rates, and a world breaching the essential 1.5 celsius warming cap under climate change, with Ontario currently set to miss our 2030 goals by megatonnes. The public pay the price in life and health - eroded or missing ecosystem services, droughts and out of control wildfires, skyrocketing food prices, dangerous heat waves, and more. Wetlands and watersheds, part of the Conservation Authorities' purview, are essential for preventing flooding, which has increased by some 400% in the last several years.

89% of Canadians identified nature as a core aspect of national identity. Will our government reflect majority opinion and protect our basic environmental needs? I strongly urge that we stop dragging our environmental rights into the past and instead bolster them. Do not amalgamate the 36 conservation authorities; they will not be able to do their jobs if they are further downgraded, already strained as they are under severe underfunding and having powers removed by the government.