I am vehemently opposed to…

I am vehemently opposed to this amalgamation. The provincial government has already degraded so many environmental regulations its appalling. amalgamating the conservation authorities will take away the local knowledge of the area and many of the projects that they do will be cut. As someone who has worked at four different conservation authorities. I don’t think you understand how much work every employee does with very little budget. even though they get paid less than everyone else in the environmental industry. I do agree that trying to streamline them is a good idea, but this is something they have been trying to do but generally the big issue that I see is always funding. What they need is funding from the province so they can do all the work that they need to and create more frameworks that they can all share. Although many of them do this already. However, a lot of the water sheds are different so it doesn’t always work to have all the same programs, etc. i’m really concerned that amalgamating them. You’re going to cut all of the wonderful programs that they do and monitoring, especially in a time when the province has already cut funding for other types of environmental monitoring. If you do this, there’ll be no one left in the province to do any type of environmental monitoring. Also there is no evidence that there is a delay in permits, I’m afraid it’s just an excuse to get rid of more regulations protecting the environment under the ruse to build more homes. We need a healthy environment and conservation authorities help in monitoring and implementing programs to clean up areas. Need to think long term what will happen in 20, 30, 40,50 years not just in 4.