I have worked at 3 different…

I have worked at 3 different conservation authorities and am now retired, so I understand the workings of these organizations from the inside and with 20 years of experience.

The idea of amalgamating conservation authorities is just plain stupid. Even working on their core mandates of water quality and flood control CAs are already stretched to the limit with the existing watershed boundaries and the miniscule amount of provincial funding. Employees from each CA are supposedly trained to deal with potential floods, no matter what their job is. I've been involved in emergency response training and we could barely cover the the ground of our own watersheds. If CAs are amalgamated they will have to work from a central office that will be too far from outlying areas to monitor flood waters. The result could potentially be catastrophic. If you keep employees in existing offices to do this job it won't make things more efficient, it will make them less so. And it certainly won't save any money because satellite (probably existing offices) would have to be retained to support employees undertaking this work. If CA offices are closed it will mean a lot of highly skilled people will be unemployed. Where's the value in that?

Honestly, I can't see the point of this amalgamation. If the idea is to weaken CAs, it will succeed. But ultimately this will cost a lot more than the way things are, if only from property damage or illness due to poor water quality conditions. I'm surprised that after Walkerton we still have a Conservative Government wanting to cut back on CAs even more than they did under Harris, which lead to the Walkerton debacle in the first place. Smarten up guys! CAs perform many vital tasks. They have already been cut so much they are barely functional. Instead of amalgamation, how about investing in CAs more to make them more efficient!

On a final note, I don't see why the province continues to attack CAs. Virtually all provincial funding has already been cut, so it is not like there is much savings involved. Municipalities are happy to support CAs because THEY see value in the role they play. Listen to them when it comes to amalgamation or the need support all existing CAs.