December 21st, 2025 RE: ERO…

December 21st, 2025

RE: ERO 025-1257 (Bill 68)
I am writing this as a citizen of Ontario and a resident of Niagara. I am very concerned about the risks and costs associated with reducing Ontario’s Conservation Authorities (CAs) from 36 to 7, while creating a centralized provincial agency to govern them. I therefore request that it not be implemented.
The government states that the mergers are part of a plan to cut red tape and “help get shovels in the ground faster” to facilitate the construction of homes and other infrastructure projects. Conservation Authorities were created to conserve Ontario’s natural resources from over-development, to protect watersheds, wetlands, and drinking water sources, and to provide protection against natural hazards like floods. This is even more vital as the planet warms and the climate changes. We need to get shovels in the ground to build the right projects, in the right areas, for the right people. And they need to be safe.
We are in the middle of an affordability crisis. Taxpayers will be footing the bill for this unnecessary plan which includes creating yet another level of costly bureaucracy. To add insult to injury, we will lose the right to provide local input. Currently, local CAs are accountable to their taxpayers through municipal and regional councils. Under Bill 68, crucial decisions will be made by unelected people in an agency far from the people funding the remaining CAs.
Bill 68 includes provisions that would grant the Minister the power to approve specific development proposals when they are opposed by CAs based on natural hazard and public safety criteria. Local experts are in a better position with their deep technical knowledge to make these decisions, not an elected official with no expertise. This kind of overreach poses a safety hazard and is exactly why CAs were established in the first place.
This government has continuously sought to weaken environmental regulation, attacking CAs through Bills 229, 23, and more recently Bill 5 with its special economic zones.
There are no clear benefits to this bill, yet there are significant costs and risks. I ask that you refrain from implementing this plan and that you instead bring together representatives from the current CAs to find safe, more cost-effective ways t0 achieve your objectives within the current system.