As a cub reporter in 1990s Owen Sound, I always looked forward to covering the Grey Sauble Conservation Authority. The authority held its board meetings in its administration building that nestled in an arboretum. The location offered a moment of tranquility during a busy day of reporting. But before covering this beat, and like many an urbanite, I had no clue about the range of programming these regional agencies offered or who actually operated them. I didn’t realize they were the “primary care providers” of our relationship with our landscape—managing floods, protecting forests and wildlife, and curbing farm runoff.
Understanding what an authority does and how it came to be has never been more important. This year, 2026, the conservation authority as we know it in Ontario will change. The province is merging its 36 authorities into seven massive districts, following several other changes to the authorities’ responsibilities and services that the development-friendly Progressive Conservative government has instituted since coming to power in 2018. The province claims these changes increase efficiency and accountability, while others fear they favour development at the cost of ecological health.
Eighty years ago, a collection of natural scientists, ecologists, foresters, engineers, and government officials placed their bets on the watershed as the ideal jurisdiction size because they believed that local conditions drove issues, the support of communities on the ground and upper-level governments was equally essential for implementing solutions, and, when it came to water, the whole watershed needed to be considered. To pull off this approach, they were convinced they needed agencies independent enough to act in the interests of both the watershed and its inhabitants, yet responsive enough to secure buy-in from their jurisdictional partners. A look at what these founders built and why will shed light on how the contemporary attempt to reform the system might falter and indeed even exacerbate other longstanding issues with the system that have escaped our attention.
Founding the authorities
Two groups are credited for getting the conservation authority ball rolling in the 1940s: the Federation of Ontario Naturalists and the Ontario Conservation and Reforestation Association. The Federation, established in 1931, was an umbrella organization for seven naturalist groups in Ontario communities. It was founded by prominent naturalists, ecologists and biologists. Although small in numbers, the group was influential because of its connections to government officials and civil servants. The organization supported a protectionist approach to wildlife habitat, similar to that of the preservationist movements in the United States and Britain. To this end, they promoted the establishment of reserves to protect wildlife habitat and natural areas from the impact of human activity.1 The OCRA, on the other hand, was more utilitarian, using science and engineering to balance the harvesting of natural resources in a landscape with strategies to ensure their renewal. Established in 1936, its membership included professional foresters and agricultural technicians employed by municipalities, as well as “dedicated laymen” who joined the new organization.2 One of the chief proponents of the utilitarian approach was A. H. Richardson, a biologist and forester employed by the province. He would later head the Ontario Conservation Branch for its first 15 years.
Around the time OCRA formed, the Federation facilitated a survey of natural resources—including trees, crops, wildlife, soil, and water—in King Township, a municipal jurisdiction north of Toronto covering 140 square miles. Richardson credited the study and a subsequent rehabilitation plan for the township with crystallizing the central idea behind the conservation authorities. “[I]t spearheaded the concept that conservation cannot be attained by piecemeal methods, but rather that it must be accomplished with a multi-purpose programme for the renewal of all natural resources in an area,” he wrote in a history of the authorities. But the plan fell short when the groups involved could not get provincial or federal funding.3
The Ontario Conservative government became a willing partner in the early 1940s as the province faced mounting pressure to address pollution in its waterways and lakes from urban and industrial waste, as well as the need for water suitable for drinking and in sufficient volume to support irrigation in summer. Pressure came from all sides—from local municipalities such as London and Kitchener struggling to meet the water needs of their growing populations, to the Dominion government, which was under international pressure to address Canadian pollution in watercourses shared with the United States. The two groups and provincial officials favoured a regional, ground-up approach to conservation, even though many involved in the effort were more used to leading from the top down. Several held prominent positions in Canadian and Ontario governments and institutions. Some members of these groups had ties that spanned years and, in some cases, families. They represented a group that not only shared a similar idea of conservation, but were also united in how it should be implemented, who should control it, and what form it should take, which was as a regional entity under public jurisdiction.4
A local model for regional conservation already existed in the Grand River Conservation Commission, established in the 1930s to manage the spring flooding and summer droughts that characterized the Grand River watershed. It featured a collaborative approach to water planning and cost-sharing not only between municipalities but also between different provincial departments. Its first major project, the Shand Dam, completed in 1942, became the country’s first “multiple-purpose reservoir designed to provide regional benefits.”5
Other models existed at a distance. The Ontario conservationists quickly ruled out the Tennessee Valley Authority. The Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District in eastern Ohio, on the other hand, aligned well with their ambitions. Muskingum straddled 18 Ohio counties and had been envisioned as a way to manage water flows, including water conservation and encourage soil conservation. The district also provided man-made lakes that offered recreational opportunities. The venture had secured multi-government support to build and manage flood management projects. Twenty federal, state and local agencies participated in its development.6
In 1943, the Ontario conservation groups worked with the province to survey the Ganaraska River watershed east of Toronto. They not only analyzed water flow and use but also climate, soils, vegetation, forestry, the physical and economic aspects of agriculture, plant diseases, entomology, and wildlife—data types rarely included in surveys. Using the survey results, presented at a conference in London, Ontario, they developed a rehabilitation and conservation plan that estimated the time and labour to completion would be two years and 600 men.7 Recommendations for organizing conservation authorities also came out of this project. The next year, the province established the conservation branch in the Department of Lands and Forests to provide hydrological expertise and to coordinate support and expertise from other government departments and services for those on the ground. Two years later, in 1946, the provincial government passed the Conservation Authorities Act. Within a decade, 10 authorities were in operation; a quarter of a century after the act, 38 existed. A series of amalgamations brought the number down to its present of 36, even as new authorities continued to be created through the 1960s and 70s.
Challenges of operation
From the start, these authorities faced challenges. Some were technical. Creating a reservoir that could be used for competing uses of flood control and storage to alleviate summer droughts, for instance, required extensive planning.8 Coordinating buy-in from different levels of government, not to mention from the communities being served, was no easy feat either. Infighting was another issue early on.9 The legislation required all municipalities in a watershed to support an authority before it could be established, but it made no provision for consultation with First Nations communities. The Conservation Act has been amended in recent years to recognize Indigenous treaty rights and individual authorities have sought the views of First Nations communities with varying success and so a central challenge has been how best to structure involvement in a way that recognizes these nations’ jurisdictional status.10
Jurisdictional overlaps were yet another problem. A decade after the province introduced conservation authorities, it established the Ontario Water Resources Commission to develop water supplies, operate water supply and sewage disposal systems for municipalities, and combat pollution. The Department of Mines issued licenses to extract mineral resources regardless of where they were located.
Struggles with financing also emerged early on. Initially, organizers had envisioned a three-way partnership to finance large projects such as dams and reservoirs with the provincial and federal governments contributing the largest share of funds. This approach was used to develop the Shand and Luther Marsh dams in the Grand River watershed and the Fanshawe dam in the Upper Thames River watershed. But a change in federal policy in 1966 ended federal assistance and clawed back promised funds.11 Nevertheless, a uniform approach evolved for most other programs and operations, and the authorities achieved roughly 25 years of financial stability spanning the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s. During this time, municipalities contributed 50 per cent of the operating and programming costs, and the province contributed the remaining 50 per cent.
Even with this formula in place some authorities struggled to find funding. An authority’s overall funding envelope depended on how much municipalities could elicit from their tax base. Fewer taxpayers and lower property values meant a smaller budget regardless of the watershed’s size or complexity and a 1966 review of the program led the province to establish a supplementary grant for rural authorities. After another review in 1987, the provincial share began to shrink. The review had recommended that funding be constrained to core responsibilities: the management of water flows and soil erosion. Previously, provincial funding shouldered up to 85 per cent of the total costs of water and land management projects and programming as well as recreation and community relations programs.12
Funding struggles and new directions
Cuts deepened following the 1995 election of the Progressive Conservative government. Municipalities, also experiencing cuts from the province even as they undertook new responsibilities, similarly cut authority funding by limiting it to core areas of operation. In 2002, the province allocated less than $8 million to the authorities, less than half of the allocation to the conservation authority branch in 1970.13 The authorities adapted by charging user fees for recreational access and permits, selling or leasing land, fundraising and striking partnerships with each other, non-profits, or member municipalities. Those who study the authorities remark that their resilience had much to do with initially having been structured to manage funding from different sources. Nevertheless, some struggled more than others. A 2006 study found that authorities located near dense urban populations fared better at diversifying their funding sources than those in rural and Northern Ontario.14
The 2006 Ontario Clean Water Act provided a new source of funding and responsibility for the authorities. The Act responded to the Walkerton contaminated drinking water crisis in 2000 in part by designating the authorities as the lead organizations to develop, promote and enforce source water protection plans for municipalities. But the funding was tied to the activities required under the act and did not address watershed-wide conservation planning and programming. Meanwhile, criticism of the authorities’ enhanced enforcement powers mounted. In Grey County in 2006, rural municipal leaders protested an option under the act that allowed conservation authorities to enter private property without a warrant if pollution is suspected. In 2008, Niagara farmers spoke out when their regional government enlisted the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority to enforce a regional tree conservation bylaw. “I have some concerns,” Helmut Rempel, a farmer near Thorold, told a local newspaper. He pointed out that the leadership of the conservation authority was not elected and could not be held accountable for its decisions, including the rejection of permit applications, as a municipal council could.15
By the 2020s, developers were adding jurisdictional overlaps and permit delays to the list of complaints. Most vocal was the Ontario Home Builders’ Association, which also complained about different practices in processing requests across the conservation authority system. The development-minded Ontario Progressive Conservative government elected in 2018, began introducing radical reforms to the authority system, claiming they were intended to address criticisms like those of the Home Builders and the Niagara farmers. The right to appeal a permit decision to the Ontario Land Tribunal took effect in 2024, which addressed the issue of accountability for decisions, a longstanding complaint about the authorities. However, those critical of the changes say that allowing applicants also to appeal decisions to the Ontario minister of natural resources and forestry emphasizes “the economy over environment and social matters” and politicizes the process.16
Those protesting the changes assert that the provincial changes weaken the authorities’ ability to respond to local issues by developing “strategies and programs that reflect particular needs within catchments.” Jonathan Scott, a municipal politician and chair of the Nottawasaga Valley Conservation Authority board, warns that the sheer size of the merged authorities will make it difficult to connect and respond to local needs. “Losing that connection could slow approvals, create confusion and ultimately have the opposite effect of what the government intends,” he told The Narwhal in 2025. Back near Owen Sound, tensions are arising over how much municipal members pay towards the Grey Sauble Conservation Authority’s operations.17
Grey Sauble will become a part of the Huron Superior Conservation Authority, which will contain 80 municipalities. “As a rural municipality, we’re going to get shoved aside as we get amalgamated into these large regional groups,” Nadia Dubyk, a Grey Highlands municipal councillor and a Grey Sauble board member, told her council in December.18 The Association of Municipalities of Ontario has pushed back on criticism such as unreasonable permit delays, noting that the majority are issued within seven days, well above the provincial standard of 30 days for development application reviews. The organization, which wants the province to establish a working group to facilitate the transition, has also credited local oversight as “a key contributing factor to timely permitting.”19
Coming to terms with the technocratic legacy
Beneath the current state of affairs lies systemic and ideological issues that remain unaddressed. The Ontario conservation model was, and still is, a technocratic project founded on the idea that our watersheds’ ecological systems have an infinite capacity to absorb the growth of development and populations with the expert guidance from our engineers, biologists and scientists. Twenty-first century events and issues suggest otherwise.
Despite decades of initiatives to improve soil health to prevent water pollution and to educate the public about how to care for the environment, and despite their efforts to foster healthy habitats, these authorities on their own or in partnership with other agencies and government departments could not prevent the groundwater contamination that caused the Walkerton E.coli crisis. They could not prevent the invasion of the emerald ash borer, or the spread of “forever chemicals” in our surface waters. Their success in managing water flow actually encouraged more people to build in fragile areas, putting more pressure on the systems they were developed to save. This situation was evident during last summer’s drought in the Grand River watershed, which required some area residents to significantly curb their water use. New approaches such as the recent $1.35 billion Don Mouth Naturalization and Port Lands Flood Protection Project in Toronto, hold promise but take an extraordinary amount of money and resources to pull off.
Clearly, the current approach to conservation management fails as often as it succeeds. It struggles to anticipate cumulative impacts or to adequately incorporate diverse forms of local and traditional ecological knowledge. These problems reveal the limitations of a largely technocratic model to ensure the long-term sustainability of Ontario’s watersheds. If we are to rejig the conservation authority system this year, we shouldn’t simply assume bigger for less is the answer. Structures like these make it harder to respond to a watershed’s warning signs. When fast action is needed, especially in flood situations, a lack of local knowledge makes it difficult to deliver a quick, accurate response. Centralizing the system means fewer opportunities for local participation and innovation and, correspondingly, greater room for bureaucratic management.
In many respects, we are witnessing an expansion of the 1940s technocratic mindset that established the authorities, only with development as the priority rather than environmental renewal. We need to ask ourselves whether the current restructuring is really the best strategy for helping Ontario’s watersheds and the communities that call them home to adapt to the extraordinary challenges of contemporary environmental change. But neither the present goal of infinite development nor the past’s of infinite environmental renewal is realistic, which means we also need to take a hard look at what can be realistically achieved and what form our efforts should take. That is a much larger conversation, and it should not be left to a privileged few.
Cover image: Overlooking The Coves ESA in London, Ontario. Mary Baxter photo.
1. George Warecki, (2000) Protecting Ontario’s Wilderness : A History of Changing Ideas and Preservation Politics, 1927-1973, Peter Lang: 67.
2. A.S. L. Barnes and A.H Richardson (2019), Conservation by the People : The History of the Conservation Movement in Ontario to 1970, edited by A.S.L. Barnes and A.H. Richardson, University of Toronto Press: ix, https://doi.org/10.3138/9781487584399.
3. Barnes and Richardson, Conservation by the People, 2-3.
4. Warecki, Protecting Ontario’s Wilderness, 51-83.
5. Barnes and Richardson, Conservation by the People, 233.
6. Bryce C. Browning, (1944) “The Story of the Muskingum Project,” in “River Valley Development in Southern Ontario,” conference proceedings, Ontario Department of Planning and Development: 28-40.
7. Barnes and Richardson, Conservation by the People, 17.
8. Barnes and Richardson, Conservation by the People, 38.
9. Dan Shrubsole, (1992) “The Grand River Conservation Commission: History, Activities and Implications for Water Management,” The Canadian Geographer/Le Geographie canadien, 36(3), 235.
10. Bruce Mitchell, Charles Priddle, Dan Shrubsole, Barbara Veale and Dan Walters, (2014) “Integrated water resource management: lessons from conservation authorities in Ontario, Canada,” International Journal of Water Resources Development, 30(3), 149-150.
11. Barnes and Richardson, Conservation by the People, 42.
12. Ryan Bullock and Anne Watelet, (2006) “Exploring Conservation Authority Operations in Sudbury, Northern Ontario: Constraints and opportunities,” Environments Journal, Vol. 34(2), 32.
13. Nigel Watson, Dan Shrubsole and Bruce Mitchell, (2019) “Governance Arrangements for Integrated Water Resources Management in Ontario, Canada, and Oregon, USA: Evolution and Lessons,” Water, 11, 6, doi:10.3390/w11040663 and Barnes and Richardson, Conservation by the People, xi.
14. Bullock and Watelet, “Exploring Conservation Authority Operations in Sudbury, Northern Ontario,” 29-50.
15. “Clean water bill concern for Grey,” The Sun Times, Feb. 9, 2006, 3 and “Protecting Niagara’s forests,” Niagara Falls Review, Aug. 15, 2008, 6.
16. Mitchell, Shrubsole and Nigel Watson (2021), “Ontario conservation authorities – end, evolve, interlude or epiphany?” 149.
17. Chris Fell, “Conservation authority budget hike not sitting well with TBM,” Collingwood Today, Jan. 8, 2026, https://www.collingwoodtoday.ca/the-blue-mountains-and-grey-highlands/conservation-authority-budget-hike-not-sitting-well-with-tbm-11708411
18. Chris Fell, “Grey Highlands councillor worries local voice will be ‘shoved aside’ in provincial conservation Authority amalgamation,” Canadian Press, Dec. 5, 2025.
19. Association of Municipalities of Ontario (2025) “Regional Consolidation of Conservation Authorities: AMO Response to the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks,” ERO 025-1257, 5.
Mary Baxter
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