There are already serious…

There are already serious challenges with the current RCA boundaries. Many of the RCAs are headquartered so far away from where conservation needs to be supported (eg set up in towns when the watershed starts many hundreds of kilometers away). That is today. Consolidation can only make this worse. Each of the current RCAs have very special and specific needs. Consolidation runs the risk of applying blanket policies to areas that require special and specific conservation regulations, policies and control. The government of Ontario suggesting that consolidation of these organizations can happen without changing the nature of conservation support, and without the loss of jobs, is facile and shows a lack of understanding for how precious our natural resources are and how specific conservation needs to be. Within my own CSA (SNC), the Eastern Ontario drought this year affected areas within a few km of each other VERY differently. The water table formulation, vegetation, and substrate changes significantly heading north or south within the same CSA and the CSA is currently not able to provide full support in its own region as it is solely focused on ditches in the suburbs and walking trails. Since currently, many of the CSA boards are led by regional township government authorities, I can only see confusion and fighting between municipalities over CSA responsibilities should the Government of Ontario go ahead with consolidation. This will only serve to further stall useful initiatives and leave residents, farmers, landowners without the support they need in order to be good conservation citizens.