The City of Kawartha Lakes …

The City of Kawartha Lakes (the City) understands and supports the Province’s goals of improving the efficiency of watershed management, increasing accountability, reducing delays in service delivery, and increasing consistency in the enforcement and implementation of both the Conservation Authorities Act, regulations and policies, and the services provided by local Conservation Authorities (CAs) in a manner which is consistent across the entire province, despite having minimum advanced notice about the proposed regional consolidation, nor any clear explanation about its necessity. The City also supports the intent to standardize fees, permit process, report templates, administrative software, and levels of service delivery in addition to the sharing of resources and methodologies for programs such as flood plain mapping. All of these initiatives should result in additional transparency between the CAs and the Province, and lead to a more client-focused delivery of services. The City endorses the creation of the Ontario Provincial Conservation Agency (OPCA) as an oversight body and a direct conduit facilitating the flow of information between the Province and the local CAs.

Despite the City’s support for the Province’s objectives of consistency, transparency, accountability, efficiency, and speed of service, we feel strongly that the regional consolidation is premature at this time and that the Province’s objectives can be achieved through the existing CA framework. The OPCA should work towards the Province’s goals of increasing transparency and accountability for CAs through additional oversight, increasing consistency through the standardization of fees, processes and policies, and increasing speed of service delivery for a minimum of three (3) years, after such time the OPCA should be reviewed. If at the time of OPCA review it is determined that the Regional Conservation Authority (RCA) model must proceed, we suggest that the nineteen (19) existing Source Protection Regions be used as opposed to the seven (7) proposed RCAs, as this will aid in protecting valuable local municipal and community voices and ensure local level expertise maintained. We welcome additional dialogue and consultation opportunities.

Additional feedback and detail can be found in the formal comment letter (attached).