The proposed changes to the…

The proposed changes to the Conservation Authorities Act and the amalgamation of Ontario's 36 Conservation Authorities into only 7 will have catastrophic impacts for both residents and ecosystems alike.

Current CA boundaries reflect hydrologically-meaningful regions based on the physical landscape. Ontario's CAs were developed following the massive destruction of property and loss of life following Hurricane Hazel due to poor land use and planning practices. The current division of CA jurisdiction regions by watershed helps ensure that management decisions are made based on the specific environmental, ecological, hydrological, and social characteristics of each watershed. These characteristics vary widely between watersheds.

The proposed changes to jurisdictional boundaries without hydrologic basis will not improve CA efficacy nor efficiency as the Government of Ontario has argued, but will instead have the opposite impact. Management between different parts of watersheds will be less cohesive as watersheds are split between CAs. Decision-making will be forced to be more generalized to cover larger regions. System-specific expertise from each watershed will be diluted.

The Government's goal with these proposed changes is to 'streamline' decision-making for faster approval for development. However, the proposed changes to CA boundaries to facilitate the goals of the current government regarding more rapid development contradict the purpose of CAs. CAs were established to ensure that planning decisions were made in the best interest of environmental and ecological protection, and to prevent unsafe development in high-risk areas.

Pushing through rapid approval for development plans may have very short-term benefits for increased housing and commercial availability but will have catastrophic environmental impacts down the line. Approving development on floodplains will not prevent them from flooding. Draining wetlands for development and agriculture will only worsen downstream flooding during storm events, in addition to the loss of climate and biodiversity related ecosystem services provided by wetlands.

I strongly oppose the proposed changes to Ontario's Conservation Authorities as they are ineffective and short-sighted. In the face of accelerating climate change and biodiversity loss, Conservation Authorities - based on their current boundaries - are a critical branch of the Government of Ontario and should be left intact for the long-term benefit of Ontario's residents and environment.