I live in the Grey Sauble…

I live in the Grey Sauble Conservation Authority area and hike the Grey Sauble conservation properties frequently. I am also a member of the Sydenham Bruce Trail Association and served on their board for 5 years. It was during that time that I became aware of the number of properties that had been gifted to the Bruce Trail Conservancy in the early days of the existence of the Bruce Trail Club and those properties had in turn been entrusted to the Grey Sauble Conservation Authority to maintain them for the use of hikers on the Niagara escarpment forever.

I am also aware that from my perspective the Conservation Authorities are all underfunded for the conservation work that they are supposed to be doing. We live in a society that claims to be worried about the impact on the planet of climate change produced by the mistreatment of our environment which appears to have occurred because humanity seems to believe that the world and its resource are provided for us to plunder and exploit. Understanding solutions on how to live more harmoniously with our environment are not going to be achieved by amalgamating conservation areas that have very different environmental needs and certainly have very different watersheds.

Even a very brief consideration of the various conservation authorities that it is being proposed should be amalgamated into Huron-Superior Regional CA, shows how varied these regions are. Lakehead is a completely different area and really only connected to the rest of the proposed conservation areas for this region by the fact that their rivers feed into one of the Great Lakes. Even Saugeen and Grey Sauble (currently adjacent conservation authorities) have very different ecosystems and needs. Saugeen CA being largely agricultural land but having Bruce Nuclear a major provider of electricity to Southern Ontario, but with all the challenges to the environment of potential radioactive contamination even if the energy produced is presented as green. Beside that is Grey Sauble CA with large portions of the Niagara escarpment recognized as a UNESCO biosphere reserve and the town of Owen Sound with large amounts of pollution left from previous industrial activities, which focuses in the land surrounding the harbour and in the sediment of the harbour itself. These two regions present very different challenges for a conservation authority tasked with looking after watersheds.

I have yet to be presented with clear evidence that amalgamation of smaller functioning bodies ever achieves what governments say it will. I lived through the amalgamation of the various regions within what is now metro Toronto and saw little evidence of cost saving to those regions and much more of a loss of voice to effect the local infrastructure of the region that one lived in. I also saw it with the amalgamation of school boards where there was a loss of neighbourhood input into how schools could and should be run and a top down direction as to what should happen for all students irrespective of their individual needs or backgrounds. It often seemed to end up with neighbour pitted against neighbour for what appeared to be scarce financial resources as money was needed to achieve the amalgamation. I can easily see how this type of conflict could occur over the distribution of financial resources in an amalgamated CA.

We have witnessed the pressure on the green belt around the GTA as development consumes wetlands and fertile farm land. Without active engagement with the areas conservation areas are supposed to serve I fail to see how they can achieve much actual conservation.

Lastly the speed with which this proposal has been introduced to the general public implies to me that the government really does not want any input or indeed consultation with the people that they are supposed to be representing.