Thread by @adamadonaldson

Follow along as we see what's going at the Grand River Conservation Authority with the Board of Directors meeting. Here's the agenda. calendar.grandriver.ca/directors/Deta…

Chair Chris White warns of a "reasonably large agenda" after they couldn't make quorum in November. There have also been a lot of changes from Bill you-know-what.

Motion to approve the agenda as amended approved.

No Declarations of Pecuniary Interest.
Motion to approve the minutes from October approved unanimously.

First presentation, Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Samantha Lawson will talk about the changes in Bill 23. Lawson says there were no changes made to schedule 2, all the changes to the Conservation Authorities Act, even though there was a lot of objection from GRCA & others.

GRCA now reports to the Minister of Natural Resources instead of Minister of Environment and Parks. These are the changes taking effect Jan 1.

GRCA is expecting to receive the minister's guide to the freezing of fees shortly. Other regulations may take a while to be received due to speed of Bill 23's passage. Lawson says it's "business as usual" till they get the new regs.

GRCA is also moving forward with renegotiations of activities of service with the exception of natural heritage consultation, which was explicitly changed in the bill.

Haldimand and Norfolk Counties rep Dan Lawrence asks if the GRCA has joined other CAs to protest the changes as united front. White says they've been submitting things over the last several months, "banging the drum", doing as much as they can with so much leg. happening at once

Lawrence says this really has an impact on budgets, and "this is not a good time" for these kind of changes. White adds that they will dealing with this for a long time, and it's going to take a long time to see the full impact.

Halton Region rep John Challinor notes that the Province has pledged to "keep the municipalities whole" in terms of development charges (not that it makes any of this okay). Believes GRCA has been clear about impacts and is confident that they will continue to advocate.

County of Brant rep David Miller notes that the City of Guelph is talking about "beefing up" planning dept., will GRCA do same? Lawson says they have added staff members, mostly out of increased plans during the pandemic, but Bill 23 won't impact CA planning same way as cities.

City of Brantford rep Kevin Davis asks Lawson about what's going to be different. Lawson says right now, not much. That will change with regs come in, like preventing CA from commenting on planning apps. Also, municipalities can issue CA approvals if plans are approved...

...Lawson notes that the city planners don't have the same technical expertise on natural heritage systems as staff at conservation authorities. Again, Lawson notes that they're still waiting for regs, plus changes to growth plan and other things to take into account.

Davis asks about fees in parks. Lawson says Bill 23 focuses on planning, other aspects of CAs will be impacted by Bill 229, and adapting those changes is underway still.

Region of Waterloo rep Sue Foxton notes that the concern is being able to build on wetlands and the effect on water. Waterloo gets 90% of water from ground source. Lawson says the challenge will be wetland evaluation system where the onus is on the developer to assess wetland.

White says again that the devil's in the details and staff are working on the final implementation and are trying to work backwards. He sys he sympathizes with new members, especially members on municipal councils b/c they're getting it from all sides.

Davis says there was a lot of lobby through the Big City Mayors, and they determined that there was no chance of getting repeal of Bill 23, so they decided to focus on mitigating 3 areas. He suggests that GRCA do the same.

White says they're not there yet, but once they get clarity about the regs, the GRCA will work with Conservation Ontario to get changes "as best we can." He notes that in previous bills there were some pull backs over time w/advocacy.

Next up, correspondences:

On letter a, White notes ("without getting too deep into the weeds") that votes on the board are weighed by how much the municipality pays in. They're setting up a subcommittee to deal with he Hamilton request.

Hamilton rep Alex Wilson notes that solving this will let them get a citizen rep on the board, so what's the timeline? Staff say that they will vote on composition later in the meeting, and then they will schedule meet ASAP, likely for January.

White adds that he can't say how long the whole process will take because it involves legal advice and things like that, but he does promise a resolution as soon as possible.

Motion to receive correspondences passes unanimously. Report of ad hoc committee also passed.

We're now going through the reports and passing them individually as White see if questions are raised by the board. Some of these are updates or responses to older legalisation passed.

Now on to report #G and there's a presentation for this one.

Legislation previous passed by the Province has demanded a change to the fee structure for CA programs and services. A minister's list was created in Apr 2022 to provide guidance, rest governed by CA act.

The GRCA also engaged a consultant to look at the fee structure and offer recommendations, and that report will come back in early 2023.

Areas that the fees cover.

Outdoor education programs currently funded by school and non-school programs and donations. No fee increase proposed for this area. There will be a 4% increase (rounded to nearest $5) for permits, plan reviews and inquires. No changes to water quality review.

Conservation area fees. There's been an increase demand in this area, which means increased costs.

GRCA proposing 3-5% increase for the majority of fees, exceptions being membership cards, facility rentals, group camping, nightly unserviced camp sites, and nightly serviced campsites.

Fee changes for campsites.

Board member asks about "shocking" increase of 25% on worms. Staff say that the cost of worms has not gone up in a number of years. (This may have been a jest.)

Shouldn't there be increases across the board given inflation? Different areas have different needs. For instance, not many areas in the province for hunting and one of the GRCA areas that allow hunting is at the top end of fees for similar areas.

Recommendation passes unanimously.

The following reports passed unanimously.

Motion to approve the recommendation for the reserves report:

On motion p. White notes that the complimentary pass is not meant for board members to have a good time, but meant for members to explore issues are different facilities as need. Guelph rep Billings asks if it excludes Elora Gorge, and it does.

Recommendation for q. is passed differently from presented here. It's a report for receipt with no additional motion.

These reports passed unanimously.

Last report: Grand River Watershed Flood Notification System with a short presentation from Vahid Taleban, the senior engineer for flood management.

There was a flood warning emergency planning meeting in November with 135 people in attendance. If you're interested this is the flow chart for how the flood warning rolls out.

A test of the flood message system was done in November and everything seems to be working as prescribed, which is good news going into the winter season.

It seems odd to note today, but remember, winter has no yet technically begun...

White calls flood management the core of what GRCA does. "This is who we are," he said.

Miller asks about following up with the two municipalities that had issues with the warning. Taleban said that it was an issue on the municipal end with new staff, but that was the point of the test to begin with.

Motion to receive the report approved unanimously.

Motion to approve committee memberships approved unanimously.

Motion coming out of closed session: to increase salary of non-union workers by 2.5% starting in January. Passes unanimously.

Next GRCA board meeting: January 27, 2023 at 9:30 am. This will include the election of new officers.

Billings asks if it's going to be in-person or hybrid. It seems like hybrid wins the day for the purposes of flexibility.

Meeting adjourned on this board!

@threadreaderapp Unroll please.