‘Bigger than Belize’: Conservation authorities push back against provincial boundary changes

Local conservation authorities push back against government plan to amalgamate 36 conservation authorities into only seven. CTV’s Scott Miller reports.

Simply put, Ontario’s Conservation Authorities do not like provincial plans that would see 36 conservation authorities turned into seven.

“We don’t support the proposal that’s being put forward by the province at this time. We haven’t seen any information in terms of a business case, feasibility assessment, cost benefit analysis, anything like that,” says Tim Lanthier, chief administrative officer with the Grey-Sauble Conservation Authority.

On Oct. 31, the Ministry of Environment proposed changes to the Conservation Authorities Act, which would merge the province’s 36 conservation authorities down to seven and would create a new Ontario wide Provincial Conservation Agency. In midwestern Ontario’s case, the new Huron Superior Regional Conservation Authority would merge seven conservation authorities, and would stretch all the way from Bayfield, to Thunder Bay.

“This is bigger than the country of Belize. It’s about four times the size of Prince Edward Island,” said Lanthier.

The ministry’s goal is to speed up building permits, by developing a single permitting portal — one set of rules, for the entire province.

On average it takes 12.5 days to get a permit approved by Ontario’s Conservation Authorities. The wait for the Maitland Valley Conservation Authority is 5.7 days.

“One could argue that it’s not fragmented as much as it is fine tuned. It’s fine tuned for the shoreline of Lake Huron, the shoreline of Lake Erie, the eastern shore of Lake Ontario, Lake Simcoe, all different environments have different set of circumstances that you need to have. We have different environments in our different watersheds, as well. That’s why we have different rules that are applied,” says Ed McGugan, chair of the Maitland Valley Conservation Authority Board.

The province says no conservation “field staff” would lose their jobs, but such a massive amalgamation would move decision making for local projects, hours and hundreds of kilometers away, said conservation officials.

“By scaling up to a regional area, which in our case is over 23,000 square kilometres, going from eight member municipalities to 80 municipal member municipalities. We’re really concerned that the local voice of both the people in our community, and the elected councillors that sit around municipal council tables, will be lost in the noise of the bigger area,” said Lanthier.

London would be covered by the Lake Erie Regional Conservation Authority, encompassing an area from Orangeville to Windsor.

“We’ve had some pretty big storms here and nobody dies. Your property doesn’t wash away. There’s a lot of places in North America where you cannot get insurance for your building at all, because of hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods. Look at the what happened in Texas with all that flooding. All those people died. And you know, Ontario has regulations about that kind of thing, and conservation authorities apply these regulations in their local context, which is important,” said McGugan, who is also vice-chair of Conservation Ontario.

Public comment on the proposed changes are open until Dec. 22.

Conservation officials say they’re willing to work with the province on modernizing conservation authorities, but the current proposal, is moving too far and fast.

If approved, the proposed boundary changes would take effect, Jan. 1, 2027.

“We do want to see the provincial government to succeed in their plans. I mean, the provincial government wants to look after the people of the province, look after the environment, and look after the economy. And, we want to be part of that, too. But, we believe local representation is really important, and local programs are important, too,” said McGugan.