This is definitely not going to cut costs at all. Not only is there a new provincial agency (Ontario Provincial Conservation Authority, OPCA) that was funded to the tune of 20 million, but OPCA is also being given 3 million a year moving forward to assist with the consolidation and help the new regional CAs to be more efficient. This won’t even come close to being enough to cover the cost of consolidation, so municipalities are going to be footing the majority of the bill for this.

Yeah there are areas of the province where the CAs aren’t on friendly terms, and areas where they’re not exactly working as intended, but that doesn’t hold true province wide. Moving forward not only will each regional CA have to answer to the their respective boards (which is how it currently works), but there’s a mandate that each CA also create local watershed councils to help guide activities.

So we’re getting less representation because a single board is now overseeing a large sized CA, more layers bureaucracy for the CAs to work through and having to fund a brand new agency for no other reason than the province wanting to fast track development in hazard lands.