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Category Archives: Conservation Authorities Act

ERO-019-4978 – Subwatershed Planning Guide

By Linda Heron on Friday, March 11th, 2022
Posted in Climate Change, Conservation Authorities Act, Environmental Registry, Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, Municipal, ORA Submissions, Planning Act, Provincial Policy Statement, Regulatory Submissions, River Concerns, Rivers at Risk, Urban Development, Water Quality

The ORA is very supportive of policy and legislation that provides an ecosystem approach for planning at a watershed and subwatershed scale. It is essential that we ensure a healthy environment, with clean and abundant freshwater resources, that helps to provide resilience to the extremes of climate change.  We are appreciative of the information webinar on the Subwatershed Planning Guide, and the 45-day comment period.

Overall, we are generally supportive of the draft guidelines as they seem broad ranging and comprehensive.  We are especially pleased to see the partnership approach with Indigenous peoples included in the Guide and agree that this approach will lead to a much more comprehensive subwatershed plan.

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ERO-019-3268 – Strengthening our Environmental Compliance Approach

By Linda Heron on Monday, June 28th, 2021
Posted in Aquatic Life, Class EA for Waterpower, Clean Water Act, Climate Change, Conservation Authorities Act, Dams, Endangered Species Act, Energy, Environmental Assessment Act, Environmental Registry, Fisheries, Hydroelectric, Land Use, Mercury, Ontario Water Resources Act, ORA Submissions, Planning Act, Policy & Process, Pollution, Provincial Policy Statement, Public Lands Act, Regulatory, River Concerns, Rivers at Risk, Sewage, Species at Risk, Toxics, Urban Development, Waste Water Treatment Facilities, Water Quality

West Credit River, Photo by Steve Noakes

The ORA offers strong support for polluters being held accountable; however, that isn’t what’s happening here.  Rather than strengthening enforcement tools that hold polluters accountable, this government is systematically and persistently dismantling, weakening or bypassing all environmental policy and legislation that was designed to protect the environment and deter those industries, corporations or individuals who would pollute and/or destroy the environment.

These ERO postings consistently mislead the public, especially in the top several paragraphs and titles, which contain misleading introductions to the proposed policy the government is proposing.  In fact, you can always count on these “modernization” policy changes to be a further attack on environmental policy and legislation. It is even more despicable that these attacks have largely been carried out during the government’s declared COVID Emergency, where no public consultation is required, and what consultation that does take place is meaningless when the main objective is to cut red tape and remove any roadblocks to development and pollution, in spite of the public’s strong recommendations to protect the environment.

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112 Organizations offer Support for Conservation Authorities in Ontario

By Linda Heron on Monday, April 27th, 2020
Posted in Conservation Authorities Act, Joint, Regulatory, River Concerns

We, the 112 undersigned organizations, call on the Government of Ontario to retain the current mandate of the province’s 36 Conservation Authorities in protecting, restoring and managing the watersheds where 95 percent of Ontarians reside. Their functions and responsibilities with respect to land use planning and permitting, monitoring, stewardship and education must be maintained, for the reasons outlined below.

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Improving the province’s resilience to flooding – ORA Endorsed

By Linda Heron on Thursday, June 27th, 2019
Posted in Conservation Authorities Act, Flooding, Regulatory Submissions, River Concerns, Support

In closing, we urge the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry to recognize the necessity of managing flood mitigation at a watershed scale and the importance of natural infrastructure. There is no need to reinvent the wheel when it comes to protecting our communities from flooding. This goal can be achieved by investing in our existing agencies (eg, conservation authorities) and by protecting and restoring our natural infrastructure (eg, wetlands and forests). 

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Consultation: Improving the province’s resilience to flooding

By Linda Heron on Tuesday, June 11th, 2019
Posted in Climate Change, Conservation Authorities Act, Flooding, Government, ORA Submissions, Regulatory, River Concerns, Wetlands

As a basic, the province must have a comprehensive approach to watershed management through flood mapping, mitigation and hazard planning and protection, including services such as wetland protection, climate change adaptation and resilience, biodiversity health and land use planning.  In other words, we must be beefing up our public safety and environmental protection efforts, rather than gutting and streamlining key policy and legislation, as well as funding for our regulators.

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ERO-013-5018 & 4992 – Conservation Authorities Modernization Operations & Permitting – Bill 108, Schedule 2 – Joint

By Linda Heron on Tuesday, May 21st, 2019
Posted in Conservation Authorities Act, Joint, ORA Submissions, Regulatory

We strongly encourage the Ministries to hold fulsome and meaningful public consultations, aimed at ensuring that the proposed budgetary, legislative, and any future regulatory changes meet the desired vision of improving Ontario’s resilience to climate change. Until such time as a full assessment of the proposed changes is complete, we call on the government to delay enacting Bill 108, Schedule 2. 

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EBR: 013-1817 – Watershed Planning Guidance

By Linda Heron on Saturday, April 7th, 2018
Posted in Clean Water Act, Conservation Authorities Act, Environmental Registry, ORA Submissions, Regulatory, Regulatory Submissions, River Concerns

This document does not go far enough to place CAs in a central role of watershed planning and management, or in working collaboratively with other municipalities and planning authorities. The CAs have a mandate to ensure the conservation, restoration and responsible management of Ontario’s water, as well as the land and natural habitats; however, municipalities have no such mandate and are more development oriented. It is essential that municipalities are not just using this Watershed Planning Guidance purely for municipal land use planning or a stormwater management tool, but that CAs play a central role, and it is used as an integrated watershed planning and management framework.

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Conservation Authorities Act, 2017 (EBR Registry Number: 013-0561) – Joint Submission

By Linda Heron on Sunday, June 11th, 2017
Posted in Conservation Authorities Act, Joint, ORA Submissions, Regulatory, Regulatory Submissions

 First, we understand that the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNRF) is working on a summary document to help the public understand the proposed amendments to the Conservation Authorities Act (CAA) contained in Bill 139. As of the date of this letter, this additional explanatory information is not publicly available and the current deadline for comments is June 30, 2017. The public will better informed about the implications of the proposed amendments with the explanatory document in hand. And, as the Environmental Bill of Rights, 1993 (EBR) provides for “means by which residents of Ontario may participate in the making of environmentally significant decisions by the Government of Ontario” (s2(3)(a)), effective public participation is facilitated by ensuring there is adequate time to consider the potential impacts of the proposed amendments.

Second, as Bill 139 contains more than simply amendments to the CAA, consideration of the impacts has the potential to be complex and warrants more than 30-days for the public to be able to effectively provide feedback. Continue reading →

EBR 013-0561 – Proposed amendments to the Conservation Authorities Act as part of Bill (139) – Joint Submission

By Linda Heron on Friday, June 9th, 2017
Posted in Conservation Authorities Act, Joint, ORA Submissions

 The undersigned have prepared the following comments in response to the proposed amendments to the Conservation Authorities Act (per Schedule 4, Bill 139). These are our preliminary submissions on this matter; we reserve the right to provide more fulsome and detailed comments as Bill 139 moves through the legislative process. We appreciate the opportunity to provide our input and look forward to working with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry to ensure natural resource conservation, restoration, sustainable development and wise management in Ontario’s watersheds.

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EBR 012-7583 – Conservation Authorities Act Review

By Linda Heron on Friday, September 9th, 2016
Posted in Conservation Authorities Act, ORA Submissions, Regulatory, Regulatory Submissions, River Concerns

Autumn at Big Falls – Trout Lake River

In addition to our submission regarding the Conservation Authorities Act Review Discussion Paper, dated 19 October 2015, ORA is very pleased to provide our recommendations on what has been identified as the five priorities for updating the Conservation Authorities Act…. Continue reading →