My husband and I live on a…

My husband and I live on a 110 acre former farm now woodland in South Frontenac, 15 minutes from Westport, Ontario. Our home and community lies within the Frontenac Arch Biosphere, a UNESCO recognized region of exceptional ecological diversity and connectivity that links the Canadian Shield to the Adirondack Mountains.
We are well served by the Rideau Valley Conservation Authority, whose watershed based planning and on the ground stewardship are vital to local safety and environmental health. One of its properties, Foley Mountain Conservation Area, lies directly north of the Village of Westport and provides forest cover, wildlife habitat, recreational opportunities, and a natural buffer that helps protect the village and surrounding lakes from erosion, flooding, and other climate related impacts. The skilled staff here have developed relevant programming in the forests and wetlands for area schoolchildren. We know their mental health and well being benefits from these opportunities.
Conservation authorities protect people and property from flooding and other natural hazards, safeguard drinking water sources, conserve wetlands and natural heritage and educate. Consolidating 36 conservation authorities into 7 large regional bodies overseen by another layer of bureaucracy twice removed, will weaken local knowledge, local accountability, and the ability to respond to the distinct watershed conditions. We don’t buy the argument that fewer people with eyes on will improve the situation. We doubt your claim that we will have more frontline resources. It’s vague. Where are the numbers? The newly formed OPCA will be less informed about the local variables and make worse decisions as a result. We ask, who does this consolidation of power over conservation serve, and we see from your own document that it will better align what the CA’s do “with the provincial priorities on housing, the economy, infrastructure and climate resilience. Current provincial priorities of the Doug Ford conservative government are clearly to pursue resource extractive economies, speed up and cut through red tape for developers, open the door to profit and encroach upon greenbelts everywhere. It’s the kind of mindset that thinks, “hey, that’s a lot of freshwater they got there, we could get a lucrative contract with Nestle and pat ourselves on the back for our glorious economic achievements at the next election.” Sad and old and frankly dangerous. Undemocratic. We oppose it.
The proposal will create inequities for rural communities that rely on conservation authorities for technical expertise in floodplain mapping, erosion control, and natural heritage planning. If local offices are closed and services centralized, our community will face longer delays, reduced attention to site specific risks, and potentially higher costs as municipalities are forced to find alternative expertise or bear greater responsibility for hazard management.
In an era of climate change, when extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and severe, it is counter intuitive and dangerous to eliminate the very institutions designed to plan and manage at the watershed scale. Instead of cutting and consolidating, the province can strengthen conservation authorities’ capacity to deliver science based flood prevention, land use advice, and source water protection that reflect local realities.
For these reasons, we are asking the Government of Ontario to withdraw the current proposal to reduce and consolidate conservation authorities, undertake full and transparent consultation with affected communities, and commit to strengthening watershed based conservation planning with stable funding for flood prevention, natural heritage protection, and source water protection. We must preserve strong local representation and decision making for each watershed. As my mother would say, “if it ain’t broke why fix it?” and you have not convinced us the system was broke.