To Premier Doug Ford, it would seem that conservation authorities are annoyances that just get in the way of the province’s land developers.And so, it is full speed ahead with consolidating the current 36 authorities into nine regional authorities.
Under the original consolidation scheme, much of southwestern Ontario would have been lumped into the Lake Erie Regional Conservation Authority, which would have covered watersheds draining into Lake Erie, including the Thames, Grand, and Sydenham systems, supporting agriculture, industry, and shoreline communities.
In November of last year, we spoke with Dusty Underhill, General Manager of the Catfish Creek Conservation Authority, who conceded the word ‘consolidation’ is certainly not music to his ears.
“So in this context, we have to trust, I guess, the provincial government to do what they do, work in conjunction with them to try and make it the best we can make it through the consolidation periods.
“There will be lots of commenting through Conservation Ontario and I’m sure all the separate agencies. We’re working with our member municipalities to make these comments so everyone’s voice is heard, and I think right now that’s the best shot we have.”Since then, the massive Lake Erie Regional Conservation Authority has been divided into eastern and western Lake Erie entities.
And so, the Eastern Lake Erie Regional Conservation Authority (ELERCA) will include the Kettle Creek, Catfish Creek, Grand River, and Long Point Region conservation authorities.
The consolidation process is to come into effect on Feb. 1 of next year.
By the end of last month, each respective Board of Directors was required to appoint two representatives, the GM/CAO and one elected board member, to a transition committee.
The Ontario Provincial Conservation Agency will oversee the transition and appoint a project executive to chair the transition committee, which is expected to convene later this summer.
Last month, the four bodies in the ELERCA approved the Guiding Principles for Transition:
- Accountable and transparent governance
- Fiscal responsibility
- Commitment to workforce stability and talent retention
- Service excellence
- Risk management and business continuity
- Watershed-based science-informed management
- Transparency, trust and clear communication
After the release of a Joint Statement on Conservation Authority Amalgamation from the four entities in the ELERCA, we spoke with Morgaine Griffin, chair of the Catfish Creek Conservation Authority.
We began with the motivation for and end goal of consolidation.
“I don’t think there’s anyone who has a full, straight answer on the motivations,” conceded Griffin. “I think most of us who have had some engagement in the process have the general impression that it’s about money saving and about efficiency of process and about efficiency of development.
“And that, again, leaves a certain amount of contention with some of us. Some of our conservation authorities have never had any historic challenges with our local developers and municipalities. And we feel like we’re being forced to amalgamate as a result of things that we have had no part in.”Amalgamation has not resulted in an overall improvement in the province’s school boards. Look no further than the Thames Valley District School Board.
“No, it has not improved anything in our education boards,” agreed Griffin. “And in fact, I think we’re getting historically worse results in almost every category educationally right now. We’re seeing the same thing in health care right now.”
“I don’t think there was a single conservation authority that wanted to be forcibly combined with any of their neighbours. And I would still prefer that we had a little more independence than we do. I think that everyone in our particular region is taking it as a win that we were able to get down to four (authorities) and have that tighter-knit group that touches more directly on each other.
“I’ll admit that even now we find ourselves looking at certain hurdles and obstacles. Like the size of some of our conservation authorities relative to one another is so vastly different, such hugely different populations and land masses that you find yourself looking at them and going, well, how are we going to develop a governance model where all of our municipalities in the tiniest conservation authorities still get representation here?”
And so, what will this transition period look like?
“Right now we’ve developed working groups for all of these proposed new conservation units. And in those groups, I think most of them are composed of the chairs and general managers. What we’re looking to do is to figure out what our aligned values are on how we want to make this amalgamation happen, what we want to try and maintain consistently, and what changes we foresee that are going to be maybe niche to our own particular groups.
“And so in our first meeting, we started by looking to get a set of guiding principles together. Which we have here.”
Those are the seven principles listed above.
“And although I understand that the province has felt that certain conservation authorities get in the way of development, you don’t want anyone to be allowed to build on a floodplain. That does not serve your community.”
Will the regional authorities have some semblance of autonomy?
“We really have not had enough feedback yet to fully understand what’s going to happen there. I’ve heard a number of different conservation authorities advocating that they would like to see a model similar to the municipal model, where, in Elgin County, for example, we have our upper tier, which is Elgin County.
“And then we have our lower tiers, Bayham and Malahide and Aylmer and Central Elgin in my case, and so forth. And so we all have our own boards, and our boards all have a representative at the higher level.
“I’ve talked to a lot of conservation authorities that are really advocating for something like that, especially small ones that are worried about being underrepresented. Personally, I think that if we believe that this is being forced on us in order to create efficiencies and to increase the speed of things, the odds that that’s going to be appealing to the provincial government right now are pretty slim. But we’re still waiting to hear.”
The conservation authorities in the province play a critical role in planning for the increasing impacts of climate change.
Is that a function that will be watered down?
“We had unusual events, ice and flooding patterns this winter. Flooding and development have been a huge piece where conservation authorities are meant to have comment.
“And although I understand that the province has felt that certain conservation authorities get in the way of development, you don’t want anyone to be allowed to build on a floodplain. That does not serve your community. That does not serve any of the groups that have to deal with the repairs afterward. It does not help with their insurance rates. It does not help with anything for these people.
“You want comment. Even if it’s bad news, it’s better to have the bad news before you put a development into place than to go forward with it and be trying to repair damage after the fact.”
Both the Catfish Creek and Kettle Creek bodies have excellent educational components, and shouldn’t that participation be encouraged?
“I think we’ve done really good work to make sure that we are not placing a burden on the province or the municipalities where the province doesn’t feel that it’s appropriate. But I would argue that the province is mistaken in thinking that those things are not vital to our community.”
“I very much agree that that’s a part of the education process. And especially as our urban areas grow. We have more and more kids who do not have access to these things at home. I tap with my kids in the spring, and I love that, but so many families can’t do those things and won’t have access if you don’t have places facilitating it.
“It matters because I want a better relationship with our environment. It matters because I want my kids to have access to our environment. It matters because I want that natural element in my world. And so it’s easy to say, well, it’s not development related, so we don’t think it’s important. But education is important. Access is important.
“People walk our trails because they want somewhere to go that’s naturalized. All of those things that we provide might not be necessary to survival, but they’re certainly necessary to everyone’s quality of life.
“I would say especially at Catfish Creek, I’m acutely aware of just how much education we do. We have Jaffa (Environmental Education Centre). It’s an incredible resource.
“We do the sugarbush, and that’s an incredible resource. We have an entire program that we do with East Elgin Secondary School, and kids are learning to use chainsaws, and they’re canoeing, and they’re doing these incredible things that build confidence and give them life skills and allow them to use their bodies.
“Now, we’ve done a great job at Catfish Creek of not using municipal levy funds for the things that the government considers to be superfluous. We have our campgrounds. We do have other revenue sources. We do generate great revenue on the sugarbush. I think we’ve done really good work to make sure that we are not placing a burden on the province or the municipalities where the province doesn’t feel that it’s appropriate. But I would argue that the province is mistaken in thinking that those things are not vital to our community.”
So what does the landscape look like at the moment?
“Well, right now we are told that we are all running our boards, business as usual. We still have to develop a budget. We still go through all the same things. Right now, we are certainly all representing the interests of our board to this amalgamation team to try and figure out what things are going to look like.
“We don’t really have even an idea of what the structure is for our future board. It might be all upper tier. We’ve heard that there could be an appointment for who’s in charge of it. So right now we’re also wearing our own conservation hats, but we’re trying to work collaboratively.”
In the case of the Catfish Creek Conservation Authority, there is excellent representation in Griffin, along with Dusty Underhill.
We wrapped up by asking Griffin to pinpoint her early conservation roots.
“You know, I was raised routinely going to Springwater. My family camped there all the time. When I was a kid, my dad built a bike trailer that he could hitch onto his bike so we could load up a tent, cooler and things in to it, so we could cycle out there.
“So when I was talking with my council (Central Elgin municipal council) about potential board appointments, that was a board that I was really excited to potentially serve on because I knew how much it meant to me growing up.
“I know what it means to my kids when we collect our own buckets of sap, and we do our own boil. I know how much it means to be out there catching crawfish in the creek, right? These are important things to people and very visceral for me.
“And I have every intention of being there next term so that I’m available to see continuity in this process, see the transition and how smoothly we can make it run. And that is going to be worth it.”
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MUNICIPAL ELECTION CANDIDATE UPDATE
A rather active week on the municipal candidate front in St. Thomas.
After filing his nomination papers back on May 1, Doug Mactavish explained to myFM why he chose to run as mayor and not contest for a councillor’s seat.
“Because I believe in my heart that I am the right man for the job now. The next year, decisions of the next eight years, and I plan to run for two terms, are critical to the future of this city.
“I believe that I am a man whose life has prepared me for this role, and I believe that we need a mayor who can reach out to all the different generations, not just represent certain people only.”
On Tuesday of this week, Mactavish confirmed that he has altered his strategy for the Oct. 26 municipal election.
“I am stepping down as a candidate for mayor, and I am re-filing as a candidate for city council.”
This likely was prompted by the prospect of a member of city council announcing they intend to wear the mayor’s chain of office.
Mactavish stressed he is passionate about the housing issues in St. Thomas and added he cares deeply about the city’s homeless community and that is why he is running for council.
At this point the lone mayoral candidate now is Aidan Frederick, a junior staff accountant at Graham Scott Enns in St. Thomas.
Also this week, another sitting member of city council declared their intention to seek re-election. Rose Gibson filed her nomination papers this week and joins Gary Clarke and Jim Herbert.
Earl Taylor will also be running in the Oct. 26 municipal election. Taylor was defeated in the 2022 municipal vote, losing out to Tara McCaulley by five votes for the final seat on council. After McCaulley stepped away from council early last year, Taylor was appointed to fill the vacant seat.
There are now 10 candidates seeking to fill the eight councillor seats.
The other six candidates at this time are: Joe Docherty Jr., Brian May, Kyle Yates, Kay Vaughan, Geoff Mountenay, and Mactavish.
ANOTHER SHOT AT LINKING THE LINE
More than three decades after several hundred metres of rail linking Port Stanley and St. Thomas with London were ripped up, the area’s MP is petitioning the federal government to remind CN Rail of its obligation to restore the connection.
Last month, MP Andrew Lawton delivered a petition to the House of Commons calling on Ottawa to enforce a 1990 Canadian Transportation Agency order to reconnect the rails.
The link in question runs south from the Barwick Street bridge to just north of the tourism office on Talbot Street.
We recently spoke with Lawton about his petition and the city’s long-standing history with the iron horse.
“This is one of the things I love so much about St. Thomas is that we embrace being the Railway Capital of Canada. And it isn’t just nostalgia. The rail line is still a valuable part. The London & Port Stanley Railway has a tremendous history and heritage.
“But it has wrongly been severed from the national network. We had a national transportation body that issued a ruling in 1990 that CN was wrong to rip up tracks that connect the line to London and thus to the network. And this has been a longstanding issue. It’s never high enough on the radar to be the top agenda item.
“So when I’ve been working with the City of St. Thomas on CN-related issues, it’s typically been about things like the Barwick Street Bridge or the First Ave crossing. But the City of St. Thomas has always advocated for reconnection. CN was wrong to rip up the tracks, so they should put them back. This is a very simple ask.
“And I wanted to make sure that this was still put on the government’s radar. So I did, just before the House of Commons rose for the summer, a petition that my office had put together. And we talked to folks like Dan Vernackt and others involved in the Port Stanley Terminal Rail initiative. And we put this to the transport minister to enforce the order and ensure that CN reconnects that track.
“If there are issues, everyone I’ve spoken to locally has said they’re willing to talk those issues out and find resolutions. But we can’t do that without a good faith discussion with CN.”
“So the way it works with parliamentary petitions is that the minister will have to issue a response within 45 days. So by the time the House goes back in September, we’ll have a response from the government. And I hope it’s that they will enforce this order that’s been on the books for now 36 years.”
Lawton continued, “It isn’t just the tourism potential, but also bringing rolling stock in and out of St. Thomas. I know the Elgin County Railway Museum has talked about this.”
With the line north to London still in use with a daily train to service industries in St. Thomas, Lawton is
aware that CN wants to protect that route.
“If there are issues, everyone I’ve spoken to locally has said they’re willing to talk those issues out and find resolutions. But we can’t do that without a good faith discussion with CN.
“One of the first people to put this issue on my radar in my role now as an MP was Steve Peters, who said other MPs have tried. This has been going on for a while. Let’s try to do this. And I’ve talked about it, as I said, when the city and I have been talking to CN, this has always been in those meetings.
Peters noted that several years ago, when he sat as a St. Thomas councillor, CN offered to sell the city a large tract of land in the Station Street area.
The city turned down the deal because of environmental and liability issues.
“All we’re looking for is a connection to the outside world so we can get stuff in and out instead of trucking it. And to preserve that connection because, in 20 years’ time, that transportation corridor could be beneficial between St. Thomas and London to get people back and forth.”
CN has since leased the land out to two individuals, which could impact restoring the link, according to Dan Vernackt, president of Port Stanley Terminal Rail.
“CN had offered all this property to the city. It was the piece we needed for the connection, plus a whole bunch of other land along the south side of the rail yard. And the city said, no, we’re only really interested in the piece we need for the connection. And at that point, CN said, it’s all or nothing.”
Over the years, there has been talk of Port Stanley Terminal Rail extending its tourist train operation up the line to London.
But certainly not any kind of commuter train linking the two centres at this point in time.
Vernackt agreed CN would be loath to allow PSTR to run any of its trains on the line.
“All we’re looking for is a connection to the outside world so we can get stuff in and out instead of trucking it. And to preserve that connection because, in 20 years’ time, that transportation corridor could be beneficial between St. Thomas and London to get people back and forth.”
St. Thomas Mayor Joe Preston didn’t mince his words when it came to dealing with CN.
“They’ve been just terrible to work with my whole time as MP and now as mayor. CN’s an industry, and they don’t want other people playing on their tracks.”
Preston concedes the line to London is a vital freight link and will only get busier when the PowerCo EV battery plant and Vianode with its synthetic graphite operation are up and running.
Shipping goods in and out of St. Thomas by rail is a far better option than trucks, stressed Preston.
“I’m on both sides of this issue, but this is a standing order from the Canadian Transportation Authority that CN must connect that line back.”
CHILD CARE SPACES BECOMING AVAILABLE
Encouraging news for parents desperately searching for child care options in St. Thomas.
Waitlists for a pair of city child care sites will open up at 10 a.m. on Monday, advises St. Thomas-Elgin Children’s Services.
This is an opportunity for families to access licensed early learning and child care spaces in St. Thomas.
The two locations are First Place Early Learning Centre at 7 Curtis Street and Parkview YMCA at 24 McGregor Court.
First Place Early Learning Centre will have 88 licensed spaces, while Parkview YMCA will offer 49 licensed spaces.
It is anticipated that both centres will open before the end of the year.
St. Thomas Mayor Joe Preston stressed, “Access to affordable, reliable child care is essential for families in
St. Thomas and a key part of building a strong, vibrant community.”
He continued, “These additional spaces help ensure parents have the support they need to participate fully in the workforce while knowing their children are in safe, high-quality learning environments.”
For more information and to register, visit https://onehsn.com/stthomas/ux_2_0
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And a reminder, I can be heard weekday afternoons as news anchor and reporter on 94.1 myFM in St. Thomas. As always, your comments and input are appreciated.
