Conservation Authorities …

Conservation Authorities (CAs) play a key role in protecting Ontario from flooding, protecting the environment, protecting our drinking water, advancing science, restoring habitat and educating the public. They work with their local municipalities and with minimal funding to get this done. Merging conservation authorities will disrupt these important tasks. Conservation authorities already work well with their municipalities, and have developed great relationships. Although housing is important, conservation are not the reason why housing projects are not getting done. It is the current state of the economy, being to expensive for builders so they are waiting it out. Builders also need to build the right kind of housing. I think that improving the permitting that CAs are responsible for could help, as some smaller CAs may have less resources. One system for all of Ontario is a good idea. However, this should not be done by merging CAs, but working with Conservation Ontario to create a provincial website where all permits can be submitted and they would be sent to their respective CA for the project. Other consequences of merging CAs would be the loss of local municipal governance and decision-making that best fits their area, the cost to merge will be huge, as well as there would be many legal complications to work out, the new OPCA should be getting its own distinct funding from the government, as CAs are already doing lots with little funding and the potential loss of CA land ownership and greenspaces for the public. I think the government should keep what is working and instead focus on creating a provincial permit system, as well as potentially providing funding with CAs that are not able to produce flood plane mapping.