‘An existential threat’: Collingwood throws support behind conservation authority

Collingwood has joined a growing chorus of municipalities calling on the Ontario government to consult the public on changes to legislation affecting conservation authorities.

Updates to the Conservation Authorities Act and Planning Act have been buried within the government’s budget bill, released in early November, and critics have said the changes will limit the ability of conservation authorities to assess the environmental impact of developments.

In a news release issued earlier in November by the Nottawasaga Valley Conservation Authority, which includes Collingwood among its 18-member municipalities, the NVCA raises the concern that the minister of natural resources and forestry can issue an order to take over and decide a development permit application in place of a conservation authority.

The proposed changes also remove the potential ability of a conservation authority to issue a stop work order on someone who may be doing harm to an environmentally-protected area.

Coun. Mariane McLeod, who is also vice-chair of the NVCA, said the changes have been hidden in a bill that is being expedited in the Ontario legislature.

“Such wide-ranging changes to an entity that we in Collingwood fund to the tune of $270,000 a year should get some input from us,” she said, adding the changes are “seen as an existential threat to conservation authorities.”

Similar motions of support for conservation authorities have already been passed by a number of municipalities, including Essa Township, and several municipalities in Halton Region, she said.

Locally, Clearview Township declined to pass a similar motion at its Nov. 23 meeting. At its Nov. 25 meeting, Wasaga Beach council referred the matter to planning staff for a recommendation.

Collingwood’s chief administrative officer Sonya Skinner, who was previously the CAO for the Grey-Sauble Conservation Authority, said that at a minimum, the provincial government should provide opportunities for municipalities to comment on the changes.

One of the changes proposed include directing conservation authority board members to act only on the behalf of the municipality they represent, rather than the watershed. Skinner noted there is value in a shared approach to managing and monitoring water in a watershed.

“You can’t work on the hydraulics of a river when that river is just passing through Collingwood or just passing through Clearview — you need to look at the whole thing. We can’t really do that on our own,” she said. In an era of development and climate change, “it’s going to weaken our ability to address these types of issues if we don’t have a board that’s truly looking at the full watershed.”

Skinner said that while the development industry might have legitimate concerns about conservation authorities, be they fees or the time it takes to process an application, “these are items that need to be worked on in that specific area of concern, and not by weakening a water-related authority.

“If conservation authorities don’t do that work, we may end up accountable for it at the municipal level — and I don’t see that as in the best interest of Collingwood,” she said.