To the Government of Ontario…

To the Government of Ontario,

As a citizen of Ontario and a professional in the environmental field I oppose this proposal to consolidate the regional conservation authorities. I oppose this proposal for the following reasons:

1) Consolidating the regional conservation authorities into authorities that manage much larger areas will not make them more efficient. The process of this consolidation will set back permit approval for months as everything is figured out, it will most likely cost millions of dollars as well to make these changes, for example changing the naming on buildings, etc. Small costs that will add up across the province. This money would be better invested in the existing conservation authorities for the purpose of streamlining permit approvals.

2) Local conservation authorities provide very important services to their local communities. It is claimed that restoration services etc, will not be affected by this consolidation, but the act of consolidating local authorities into authorities that manage extremely large land areas WILL affect the programs that conservation authorities provide. Local authorities know the land that they manage, they often have connections with this land, they have projects they have been conducting successfully with meaningful results for years. Why upset this balance when it has worked successfully for so long.

3) Jobs. I predict many jobs will be lost due to this consolidation. Head offices will relocate, management will be reorganized or changed. This will affect people that currently have jobs at conservation authorities and people that would have jobs with the authorities in the future. Conservation is a difficult job to get into, and by reducing the number of conservation authorities and presumably the number of jobs, many people will lose opportunities and careers.

This consolidation is entirely unnecessary, and is only proposed to please the interests of few and not many. Development is important, but local conservation authorities that can assess the validity and safety of development proposals accurately are of utmost importance for the success of these developments. If many developments are completed without care, then in the future we will only be in a worse place than we are now.

Thank you,
A concerned citizen.