Reaction is continuing to come in following the provincial government’s announcement that it plans to consolidate the province’s conservation authorities.
Last week, the province said it intends to reduce Ontario’s 36 conservation authorities down to nine larger regional bodies as part of what it describes as a modernization of the system. In a March 10 release, the province said the change is intended to streamline operations and create more consistent services across the province.
Under the proposal, several conservation authorities across Midwestern Ontario, including the Grey Sauble Conservation Authority, Saugeen Valley Conservation Authority, Ausable Bayfield Conservation Authority, Maitland Valley Conservation Authority, Nottawasaga Valley Conservation Authority and Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority, would be merged into a single Lake Huron regional conservation authority.
The province says consolidating the system would reduce administrative duplication and allow more resources to be directed toward front-line conservation work, while also helping to move housing and infrastructure projects forward more quickly.
But leaders within the conservation authority system say many questions remain about how the changes would work in practice.
Tim Lanthier, general manager and secretary-treasurer of the Grey Sauble Conservation Authority, says one of the biggest concerns involves how local voices will be represented under the proposed governance structure.
Under the plan, board members for the new regional authorities would be appointed by upper-tier municipalities such as counties, while lower-tier municipalities like towns and townships would no longer directly participate.
Lanthier says that change could make it more difficult for rural communities to have a say in watershed decisions.
"A lot of the comments that were received back by the province did have to do with that loss of a municipal voice, especially the rural municipal voice," Lanthier said. "Because the representation by population, as you can imagine, rural areas obviously have a lower population.”
He says the current proposal has not yet convinced him that those concerns have been addressed.
"What we’ve seen come forward, I’m not convinced addresses that," he said. "And I still have concerns for our lower-tier municipalities."
While the full legislative details have not yet been introduced, Lanthier says the scale of the proposed regional authority would be one of the most significant changes for this area.
Earlier versions of the proposal had suggested an even larger Lake Huron authority that stretched into northern Ontario, but that concept was later dropped.
Even with the revised boundaries, Lanthier says it is still too early to know exactly how operations would change.
"It’s still pretty early on, and we still have to see the legislation to know exactly what those changes look like for us," he said.
One key issue for conservation authorities is ensuring that local expertise, often built over decades, is not lost during the transition.
Lanthier says much of the knowledge that guides watershed management today comes from staff who have spent years studying local rivers, floodplains and erosion risks.
"When we look at issues like natural hazard management, flood forecasting, and the management of flood and erosion control structures, that knowledge and that experience and that expertise lives with the staff who work at the local conservation authorities right now," he said.
Many of those staff members have decades of experience in their watersheds.
"You can’t replace that knowledge, that intimate knowledge of the landscape, with the stroke of a pen," Lanthier said.
The province has said local input would continue through the creation of new watershed councils designed to identify regional priorities.
But Lanthier says maintaining strong local offices and staff will be essential if the system is to continue functioning effectively.
"If the idea were to say that we’re going to have one centralized office for that whole area and not have local offices, then yes, I think response to local issues would be diminished greatly," he said. "However, if we assume that those local offices will remain and that local staff and the local expertise remain, I think there could be a model in which those services can be continued."
Similar concerns are being raised by officials at the Ausable Bayfield Conservation Authority. Board chair Ray Chartrand says protecting local representation will be critical if the regional system moves forward.
"Our member municipalities that are currently on the board of directors, they all have input," Chartrand said. "If you’re taking away lower-tier municipal input from Ausable Bayfield Conservation or any other conservation authority, that’s very concerning for us."
Chartrand says conservation authorities across the province have been discussing the proposal during consultations over the past several months.
"It was always the same feeling across all the conservation authorities," he said. "We cannot get rid of local partnership or local municipalities. We have to have that say at the lower level."
Like Lanthier, Chartrand says there are still unanswered questions about how the new structure would work.
The province has emphasized that day-to-day operations and services will continue during the transition and that local offices will remain in place, but Chartrand says the proposal still appears to add another layer to the system rather than simplifying it.
"They keep on telling us it’s business as usual," he said. "You will still have your local conservation offices to deal with permits and all the programs that you handle. So basically you’re still going to have 36 conservation offices, but those 36 offices will be under nine regional offices. It’s like they created another layer."
For now, conservation authorities say they will continue their regular operations while monitoring how the proposal develops. Chartrand says that includes continuing the work residents rely on every day.
"As far as we’re concerned at the Ausable Bayfield Conservation, it’s business as usual," he said. "Programs as usual, services as usual, unless we’re told different."
The province says it plans to introduce amendments to the Conservation Authorities Act in the coming weeks that would set the path for consolidation, with the new regional system targeted to be in place by early 2027.
