The provincial government is continuing to move forward with their plans to consolidate Ontario’s 36 conservation authorities (CAs) down to only nine.
For the Ottawa area, the province is merging the three existing CAs into one huge eastern regional authority, comprising of both the Ottawa River and the St. Lawrence. The current CA boards are set to be dissolved with the 2026 municipal election with a target implementation of the new system by February 2027.
Many groups across Ontario have raised serious concerns. Currently, CAs play an important role in flood protection, erosion control, water quality monitoring and wetland health, and the lands owned and managed by the CAs are used for invaluable conservation, education, research, recreation and special projects including tree planting and clean-ups. CAs rely on their extensive local knowledge of the landscapes, and there is concern that the consolidated territories managed by the new regional authorities will be far too vast and varied to be adequately cared for and protected.
Further, the governance is still quite unclear. While the province has claimed the new nine CAs will remain independent organizations, they will fall within a new overarching Ontario Provincial Conservation Agency. CAs also currently receive the majority of their funding from municipalities, and it is unclear how these funds will be allocated across the new larger regional authorities; whether city budgets will be staying the same or whether cities will now be sharing costs evenly.
These changes bring even more concerns for wetland conservation, which especially in Ottawa has already been a point of contention. Recently, the city unanimously approved an expansion of the Tomlinson Quarry in Stittsville, and approved a Wetland Omnibus Official Plan and Zoning By-law Amendment which included removal of some Provincially Significant Wetland designations within the Goulbourn Wetlands.
On top of the province already weakening the Wetland Evaluation System in the last few years, making it harder for wetlands to receive "provincially significant" designation, there is fear the CA consolidation will further put wetlands at risk from development, urban expansion, contamination and loss of protective measures.
Friends of Stittsville Wetlands has been actively engaged on these files and are a great way to get involved in protecting Ottawa's critical wetlands.
