Ford and his government out…

Ford and his government out to give away the environment to his Developer friends who give millions to them.
Do NOT consolidate the Conservation Authorities.

Conservationists and nature lovers in York Region are worried an Ontario government merger of conservation authorities under a single oversight agency would remove protections and knowledgeable staff from local watersheds and Lake Simcoe.

Unique to Ontario, conservation authorities help regulate development, prevent floods and monitor water quality. Municipalities fund the authorities and municipal politicians sit on authority boards, which meet publicly.

The Doug Ford Conservative government, which says the current authorities are “fragmented” and inconsistent at approving development, last month posted plans to amalgamate the 36 bodies into seven, and to put those under one appointed agency providing “centralized leadership, efficient governance, strategic direction and oversight.”

The Toronto and Region Conservation Authority, managing watersheds from Lake Ontario to Richmond Hill, would be renamed but keep its current boundaries. Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority, however, would be part of a Superior-Huron Conservation Authority stretching northeast to Thunder Bay.

In an interview, Tony Morris, Ontario Nature’s conservation policy and campaigns director, said this proposed new arrangement ignores the different ecology, hydrology and climates of the regions around Simcoe and the two great lakes — different ecosystems that face different development pressures.

It’s hard to see how one authority could manage impacts to watersheds over such a vast geography, said Morris, adding he fears the arrangement would produce less local, expert-driven decision-making and more government-imposed decisions.

Ontario Nature, which represents 150 local nature groups, doesn’t oppose consistent standards for authorities, but doesn’t see why amalgamation is needed, he said.

York’s authorities haven’t objected to the plan, apart from the TRCA requesting a name change to Central Ontario Conservation Authority “be abandoned” before it costs the authority money, time and market share.

But local environmental groups familiar with the authorities for decades are voicing their concerns.

Absorbing the LSRCA into a much larger authority would make Lake Simcoe effectively “one department among many inside a large, multi-watershed organization,” Jennie Ucar, board chairperson of Rescue Lake Simcoe Coalition, said in a letter to Ontario Environment Minister Todd McCarthy last week.

Consolidation risks diluting the Lake Simcoe Protection Plan, meant to address Simcoe’s “acute and distinct” challenges, Ucar wrote, arguing preserving the lake requires “ongoing monitoring performed by scientists who understand Lake Simcoe’s tributaries, groundwater, shoreline dynamics and land-use pressures.”

Simcoe is a huge asset, and unregulated or poor planning can threaten the lake, said Helene Van Houten, president of the York Simcoe Nature Club.

“If you mess up the waterways, you mess up the watershed — that’s pretty difficult to remedy,” she said.

Club members, who meet monthly in East Gwillimbury, consider the LSRCA “rooted in local needs and expertise,” said Van Houten, who sees amalgamation as continuing provincial efforts to erode “environmental guard rails” and leave “fewer boots on the ground, less local input, less ability to respond to local needs.”

“TRCA remains focused on protecting people, property, and infrastructure while advancing watershed health across our region,” the authority said.

York Region Environmental Alliance executive director Gloria Marsh, who has warned previously the province was weakening conservation authorities’ powers, called amalgamation “a travesty.”

There will be job losses and loss of local expertise, plus fewer educational and recreational programs at places like the Kortright Centre for Conservation in Vaughan and Lake St. George in Richmond Hill, Marsh insisted.

Marsh, one of many activists who helped convince the province to save the Oak Ridges Moraine from development decades ago, said she imagined the province’s new central conservation agency as a hand-picked body, “sitting on a throne, totally out of touch.”

“You’re not going to get that same protection of our environment, of our water,” Marsh predicted.