The County of Dufferin…

The County of Dufferin appreciates the opportunity to provide comments pertaining to the proposed regional consolidation of Ontario's conservation authorities. While greater detail is provided in the letter attached to this comment, the following is a high level overview of the key areas of concern for the County of Dufferin.

1. The regional consolidation of conversation authorities may remove conservation authority staff with strong local knowledge on certain municipalities from the planning approval processes that occur in those municipalities.

2. Small, rural-based municipalities may lose their ability to be present on conservation authority boards, in turn, impacting their ability to voice their concerns and opinions on critical issues relating to natural resources.

3. Several municipalities in Dufferin County will have a larger number of conservation authorities present in their municipalities as a result of this regional consolidation. This, in turn, means that there is only additional duplication in Dufferin County as part of this proposed new framework.

4. Being that currently a wide variety of technical tools and resources are utilized by conversation authorities, the proposed regional consolidation will allow for less environmentally restrictive tools and methodologies to become the 'common practice'.

It is our hope that the concerns and comments provided above, and, in more detail through the attached letter, will be strongly considered by the Province.