You received comparatively…

You received comparatively few comments in this alleged public engagement and the timing is perfect just days before Christmas for the deadline. Fewer than hoped for comments will be misinterpreted as a lack of public interest and will assist in moving forward this amalgamation of Conservation Authorities.
The absence of significant community communication and probably no advertising to make known the opportunity for comments is further evidence that input was not really wanted.
The 1980s amalgamation of healthcare with Sudbury declaring itself the ‘northeastern Ontario centre of healthcare’ provides a good example of how that consolidation really meant reduced healthcare for other parts of this area of the province.
A silent factor behind the merger of Conservation authorities is the anticipated regional head office being established in Sudbury robbing affected communities of all the funds that flowed into them from staff paycheques, supplies and other support service purchases.
The addition of jobs and money into the Sudbury economy can be documented later.
For communities, such as Sault Ste. Marie, this outflow of economic input at the same time constricted economic inputs are expected with layoffs from Algoma Steel couldn’t be worse.
Functionally, reduced community contact and subject matter expertise by locally based staff will make decisions made in Sudbury less relevant and accurate for areas now served by their own Conservation Authority. Some decisions will be poor ones and others will be disastrous and bring with them additional costs to mitigate, opposite of the alleged money saving objective of this amalgamation.
This too can be documented later and all data of this huge system destroying exercise will be readily available for the next provincial election.
The one size fits all centralization philosophy of this conservation system deconstruction is consistent with the province’s movement away from environmental regulation and enforcement, something that that will also be documented and the information discussed as part of the next election cycle.
Opposition parties, environmentalists/ conservationists individuals and associations and others supporting them will all make good use of this debacle and show the door to these responsible at the next provincial election.
Those losing their seats will then shake their heads and admit, this was a mistake.