The authority for the CA's…

The authority for the CA's is far too broad and encompassing. Let them focus on their core mandate which originally was to control flooding. Make them solely responsible for water flow management at all dams and lakes and rivers. Remove all duplication between MNRF , the Municipalities and the CA's. All land related decisions must flow through the OPA as recommended in PPS of 2014. If its not in the OPA, its not regulated until it is and all appeals have been satisfied. Authority for the Conservation Authorities should only be on public lands or lands they own. If they have a private agreement with a landowner then they can regulate his land. Remove wetland and hazardous land regulation from the authority of the CA. The definition of wetland in the CAA should be changed to say "the land has to be seasonally flooded and the water table has to be at or near the surface (not or). Reduce the penalties back to $10,000 from $50,000 or $1,000,000. Currently they are going around and stating there is un-evaluated wetland on private landowners thus sterilizing all their property. They are regulating all wetland (which could be almost all land as they interpret the regulations), not just PSW's. This has to stop. In the future MNRF should be responsible to identify and regulate PSW's. Municipalities are responsible for land management/zoning, ditching, municipal drains and beaver dam removal. No development permits from CA's should be required on private land. In the case of a charge being laid under the CAA, the time period to lay a charge should be reduced back to 6 months from 24 months as it was in 2009. The CA's are bringing landowners to their knees and nothing in this province can be accomplished by the middle class person. Only large rich corporations with a legal team can get anything done in this province. The CA's are largely to blame. I find the City and MNRF much more reasonable to deal with than the CA's. When I have 6 of 7 develop ready properties regulated by the CA's its seriously time for major changes. These are the broad points I wish to make. I went into more detail in my attachment.