in a similar way to…

in a similar way to consolidating farms as one big enterprise, you are going to need to invest in much bigger "machinery" to manage this hugely expanded portfolio at the regional level. I am thinking, access daily to a helicopter, access daily to powerboats, access daily to a lot of things that allow people to get to where they are needed in under an hour from base. That measure (get anywhere in under an hour from base) should be a number 1 proviso, if you go with this vastly expanded geographic range expecting to protect Ontario in the manner the Conservation Authorities Act envisioned.

With amalgamation must come some merging or omission of jobs, some must be redundant, yet you say there will be no job losses. Are you expecting natural attrition from retirements etc to simply not be filled?

Overall, I welcome the attention being paid to CAs generally, who seem to have vastly exceeded their original mandate, original raison d'etre, since the 1960s. there is a sense of them existing solely to provide and protect jobs for more and more people, engaging in more and more projects outside of public safety. They have replaced wildlife rescue charities using public funds, which may be honorable and nice to do, but it doesn't do much to protect life, limb and property from floods. There should be more focus on preventing flooding and managing excess water when that happens.

They should not necessarily own lands to achieve that - I don't know why they are considered bastions of good management. For years the UTRCA has tolerated - with knowledge - so many Noxious Weeds and invasive species impacts around its pay-to-use commercial tourism enterprise of boat launch and camping - resulting in acres of dog strangling vine, Japanese knotweed, and more acres of Giant Hogweed upstream in Perth County on lands they own. They then ignore and allow these weeds to spread, using the river system, then charge innocent landowners for the costs of their Licensed Exterminators removing them. It is a giant, self-serving, "make work" project. This erodes trust and brings into question their commitment to their cause. Do they actually care about our lands and native species at all? Not demonstrably. If there isn't money to be MADE from something, it seems they won't act on it. Are they motivated entirely by job protection and making a profit? They charge fees for all their services yet they are paid by the public purse in the first place. The financial model needs an overhaul - either the new regional CA pays its own way through providing quality services for a user fee, or it gets public purse money and acts responsibly in all areas, presenting business cases as needed.