I strongly oppose this…

I strongly oppose this proposal to consolidate the jurisdictions of the 36 conservation authorities and add a provincial oversight agency. Conservation authorities are local entities that should remain at the local level, not watered down to a more regional level with provincial control. According to the Conservation Ontario website, CAs get 53% of their funding through Municipal levies, 35% is self-generated, only 8% is provincial funds, and 4% federal funds. With such a high proportion of the funding coming from municipal sources, the CA jurisdictions should stay at the local level so they can address local issues. There should not be a provincial entity to dictate what agencies do at a local level, especially considering the pitiful contributions of the province to CA budgets.

Some of the criteria outlined in this proposal state that it will create service continuity and strengthen local partnerships, but if the province is concerned with the current inefficiencies then creating larger areas to manage is only going to add more confusion and chaos to the problem. Now there will be even more municipalities to answer to and more opinions to be filtered through in order for anything to get approved. Municipalities spread across such a large area will all have unique needs and priorities and those are highly likely to clash and cause delays. This will lead to further delays on development applications and a one-size-fits-all approach to planning across extremely varied watersheds. Not to mention, a brand new agency at the provincial level will add yet another layer of bureaucracy. Combining the CAs to such a degree that Newmarket, Goderich, Owen Sound, and Thunder Bay (!?) are within the same jurisdiction will surely lead to a dilution of services which will no longer be tailored to the needs of local residents, but instead cater to urban centres and result in disjointed delivery of programs. For instance, how can an outdoor education program be run efficiently across an area containing ten or more school boards? How can rural communities expect to receive the same level of service they currently do when their conservation authority will contain several times the number of cities as it does now?

I also cannot imagine how one could argue that it is efficient to have all of these agencies go through the process of amalgamating resources and staff (with ZERO job losses, as the Minister states) and rebranding themselves under their new names, mandates, and jurisdictions. All of the strategic planning that has been done to date will be lost and that process will need to start from scratch with entirely new teams and resources. For TRCA, in particular, there is absolutely no good reason to spend taxpayer dollars to have the organization rebranded as "Central Lake Ontario Regional Conservation Authority" (ick) when the jurisdiction isn't even changing!

The proposal also mentions that this change will enhance technical skills and resources, but the one CA with the most resources and expertise is not changing in any regard other than it's name. How can cutting edge technologies and expertise be passed on to CAs with fewer resources if the organization with the most resources is still working in it's own silo? By combining the CAs with smaller budgets, all the province is doing is creating more area to cover with no additional resources. To my earlier point, I would also argue that there are important factors to consider other than just technical knowledge and skills. The CAs house important local knowledge that best serves their local communities. Some CAs serve unique communities like Mennonite populations which actually prefer to communicate with as little modern day technology as possible. Those CAs have adapted to the demographics of their community and would not benefit from changing to meet the watered down needs of a much larger jurisdiction.

In summary, unless the province wants to start paying that 53% of CA budgets, I suggest you BUTT OUT!