This policy proposal for…

This policy proposal for amalgamating conservation authorities seems premature and rather dangerous in its current form. The watershed is a fundamental unit for hydrology and the environment. Having a conservation authority for each watershed is very effective at making effective local decisions in the realm of land use planning and resources management. At the current time, many of these watershed units are large and the conservation authorities struggle to manage the large space that they have been given. Instead of amalgamation, more money should be invested into local conservation authorities to build capacity so that proper decisions can be made at the policy level. I am very worried about amalgamating conservation authorities into just 7 groups. There are many different rivers in Ontario and they all behave differently and it will be very hard to manage the resources and disasters at the large grouping levels. There will likely be job cuts and regional office closures, which is something that we cannot afford in this environment. Conservation authorities are on the forefront on climate change and ensuring that our natural resources will continue to support our needs in the future. We risk jeopardizing this balance and we are putting ourselves into a risky situation with decision making. Climate change will threaten our daily lives on a fundamental level and local solutions will need to be developed and implemented. The conservation authorities in their current state are in a very good position to take these implementation responsibilities on. Climate change is an incredibly large and complex problem but many small and local solutions are needed to adapt to the growing challenge. Having a conservation authority in each watershed is a great unit size to have to implementing local solutions. At this amalgamation level, we risk losing the local aspect to plan implantation and will likely lose critical resources to build resiliency in the community.
The current setup of conservation authorities have a good level to being able to serve their current communities. Amalgamating the CA's into large groups where there will be hundred of kilometres away from the communities they are supposed to serve is a dangerous proposition. A goal of the policy is to quicken development permitting, but this tends to take a site visit. That will become much harder and require more resources if these policies were to change.
Overall, significant work is needed for this policy; in its current state there are a big risk to communities and our natural resources