Mayor Mike Broomhead is probably wrong when he suggested on Monday night that reporters are tired of hearing complaints about conservation authorities and their levy increases.
He is off base because such complaints are an easy story to write, and there is a certain amount of irony, never missed by reporters, in hearing councillors complain about high levies, given that they themselves increase levies on ratepayers every year.
But Mayor Broomhead is absolutely correct when he noted that despite offers from municipal councils to help conservation authorities lobby the provincial government for more funding, that local aid is never requested. Broomhead indicated that when he talked to Minister of Natural Resources Donna Cansfield last year at the Association of Municipalities of Ontario conference in Toronto, he heard some things that did not actually jibe with a local authority’s statements.
Broomhead told his council that conservation authority officials “are reluctant to have the local politicians who are incurring these levy increases involved in meeting ministry representatives. As each year goes on, I get a little bit more aggravated.”
Mayor Broomhead might have used the word “suspicious” rather than “aggravated,” and he rightly questions why conservation authorities would not want support in lobbying the province for more funds.
“I can’t understand why the conservation authorities are so reluctant to take local municipality representatives … or encouraging them,” he said.
Frankly, neither can we.
Many residents in Wellington County live in the Grand River watershed, and so they are used to having a huge operation working on watershed issues on their behalf. We know the GRCA does an incredible amount of work and has many employees. But a decade ago when we volunteered with a group working to repair rivers, we were surprised to learn the GRCA is one of the largest in the province, and many other conservation authorities are so small they sometimes have only a handful of employees.
So, we wonder why some of the small conservation authorities seem to need so much cash when they are not providing services even close to those of the GRCA. And why are they so reluctant to challenge the provincial government over funding shortages? For example, are they being forced by the province to provide services, and is that why they seek extra money each year from the municipalities? Surely if the province is demanding more work, the conservation authorities should correctly demand more cash to do that work – and demand it from the province causing that work, not local taxpayers.
Mayor Broomhead seems to have some well placed suspicions, and we wish him and his council success in finding out exactly what is going on here.
