I am writing to express my…

I am writing to express my disagreement with the Proposal to amalgamate the province's Conservation Authorities. In general this is simply an administrative lever to further reduce the effectiveness of the CA's and promote reduced oversight of development.

One of the strengths of the CAs is their detailed understanding of the areas they serve - areas that in many cases were donated by citizens because they believed in and supported the mandate of the local CA. Amalgamation over such broad areas will absolutely undermine this knowledge and therefore undermine the effectiveness of the various units. Amalgamation will ultimately result in reduced staffing with the end result of less - rather than more - protection of our watersheds and shorelines. Protection which, in a very real sense, protects the people that live in these areas.

In particular, and as a perfect example of the ridiculousness of this proposal, the province’s plan to merge Thunder Bay’s watershed with several along the Lake Huron shoreline would actually disconnect it from the region it serves. For one thing, most of the land the Lakehead Regional CA includes is on the Boreal Shield - a very different hydrological and geological environment from that of the area to the east of Lake Huron.

If amalgamation must proceed, then I support the LRCA's recommendation that the province create a separate Northwestern Ontario Regional Conservation Authority.