Heather Wright/The Independent

Brooke-Alvinston council wants more say in the changes coming to the conservation authorities saying it pays 40 per cent of the bill – far more than the two per cent the province chips in.

Nov. 25, the province pushed through Bill 68 in the Ontario Legislature. It approved changes to the Conservation Authorities Act, creating the new Ontario Provincial Conservation Agency. It will oversee conservation authorities and the transition from 36 bodies in specific watersheds to a regional network of seven conservation authorities.

St. Clair Region Conservation Authority, which made up of 18 municipalities including all in Lambton County, will be combined with others in southwest Ontario to became the Lake Erie Conservation Authority.

The province has said it wants to standardize permiting across the province to make it quicker to obtain permits for building homes.

Thursday, Brooke-Alvinston passed a motion asking the province to include municipalities in the planning of the mergers.

Councillor Don McCabe – Brooke-Alvinston’s representative on the St. Clair authority board – says municipalities have a greater financial stake that the province. In 2025, the province provided just 1.9 per cent of the funding for conservation activities. Municipalities funded 40 per cent of the work.

And, McCabe says, conservation authorities own and manage thousands of acres of land donated by local residents for long-term protection, stewardship, and the public good, with the expectation they would be managed by locally governed conservation authorities.

So far, the province hasn’t explained who will now own the lands, the assets of the authorities and their foundations – their fundraising organizations.

McCabe says there is no indication how the new regional bodies would be governed. “They’re going to take 81 municipalites in those seven areas and try to make a board of that somehow,” he says adding there is expected to be another board governing the new Ontario agency.

The councillor added the province didn’t need to take this step to harmonize permitting across Ontario; it already had the authority to do that, McCabe said.

“They could have easily have done what we’re doing here right now by opening the Conservation Authorities Act – which they have the ownership of – saying, ‘We want this standard program to be across all areas,” says McCabe.

But as it has done with other groups, like school boards, McCabe said, “It’s one hammer fits all” solution.

While municipalities across Lambton are voicing concerns about the changes and sending them to the Environmental Registry of Ontario, the province has already passed the legislation creating the new provincial agency, giving it authority to raise revenue for its operations.

“So now it’s locked in,” he said. “The government itself said they were going to get to hear about what should happen. So nice to see that democracy can die quickly.”