I grew up benefitting from…

I grew up benefitting from the incredible work of the Grand River Conservation Authority. In addition to watershed management and safety alerts, GRCA provides educational programming along with recreation and camping opportunities that I still enjoy today. GRCA can provide such valuable expertise and services because they’re local and embedded within their communities. They understand the natural areas and resources within their watershed and how these benefit and impact nearby communities.

Conservation authorities were created in response to public health concerns from poor water quality caused by a lack of accountability. The existing conservation authorities in Ontario were designed around communities that share resources, waterways in particular. That way, these communities are accountable to each other. The amalgamation of these authorities into only 7 seems incredibly arbitrary and goes against the purpose of these authorities’ existence.

GRCA is meant to be lumped into Lake Erie RCA, but anyone who spends even a little bit of time outdoors in different areas of the province should be able to recognize that Guelph and London and Windsor and Sarnia etc. are in very different parts of the province, with different natural histories, and different strategies and needs when it comes to how they coexist with their watershed. Why should someone in Windsor care or have a say in what happens to the dam at Guelph Lake?

This proposal fails to explain how forcing all of these disparate communities together will improve efficiency. It demonstrates a poor understanding of the work done by the existing authorities and why they exist in the first place. It seems like consolidation will only make decisions more difficult, reduce accountability, and slow down progress in our communities.

I’m incredibly disappointed in this proposal, and if the consolidation proceeds, it will be yet another senseless loss for current and future Ontarians.