‘We do not require conservation authorities to protect, preserve, and conserve what we need to environmentally in the province’ – Leith Coghlin, EnPointe Public Affairs

Shortly after posting last week’s column, the following comment appeared on the City Scope Facebook page.
“That and they are unmeasured, anti-democratic, and fail in their original mandates. 63 subnational jurisdictions in North America, every one of them, save Ontario, get by without conservation authorities.
“And several have far better conservation outcomes that are actually measured, monitored, and reported upon.”
The comment was posted by Leith Coghlin, a St. Thomas resident who is Managing Director of EnPointe Public Affairs, a London-based advocacy and public policy analysis firm.
Coghlin released a response to Conservation Ontario’s comments in November, 2020 regarding proposed changes to conservation authorities.
Last week, we spoke with Morgaine Griffin, chair of the Catfish Creek Conservation Authority, on the province’s plan to consolidate the existing 36 conservation authorities into 9 regional bodies. You can read that item here.

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SW Ontario lagging behind in job creation, income growth, warns economist

city_scope_logo-cmykA sobering report released this week that brings into perspective the impact manufacturing’s decline has had on southwestern Ontario’s median household income through 2015 (the last year of available census data).
The report’s author Ben Eisen, a senior fellow with the Fraser Institute, notes Windsor falls from 10th highest median household income to 25th while London falls from 15th to 27th (out of 36 Canadian metropolitan centres).
St. Thomas is included in the London Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) and so the report has important local relevance.
Eisen’s work covers the period between 2005 and 2015 and so it is a look back in time and the next census in 2021 may give a clearer picture of where we are today.

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