CENTRAL LAKE ONTARIO CONSERVATION AUTHORITY
CONTENTS
Thursday 21 January 1993
Agency review
Central Lake Ontario Conservation Authority
Irv Harrell, chairman
William Campbell, chief administrative officer
Ron Folk, comptroller
STANDING COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT AGENCIES
*Chair / Président: Runciman, Robert W. (Leeds-Grenville PC)
*Vice-Chair / Vice-Président: McLean, Allan K. (Simcoe East/-Est PC)
*Bradley, James J. (St Catharines L)
Carter, Jenny (Peterborough ND)
*Cleary, John C. (Cornwall L)
Ferguson, Will, (Kitchener ND)
*Frankford, Robert (Scarborough East/-Est ND)
*Grandmaître, Bernard (Ottawa East/-Est L)
*Marchese, Rosario (Fort York ND)
Stockwell, Chris (Etobicoke West/-Ouest PC)
*Waters, Daniel (Muskoka-Georgian Bay ND)
Wiseman, Jim (Durham West/-Ouest ND)
*In attendance / présents
Substitutions present / Membres remplaçants présents:
Abel, Donald (Wentworth North/-Nord ND) for Mr Ferguson
Rizzo, Tony (Oakwood ND) for Mr Wiseman
Sterling, Norman W. (Carleton PC) for Mr Stockwell
Ward, Brad (Brantford ND) for Ms Carter
Clerk / Greffière: Mellor, Lynn
Staff / Personnel: Pond, David, research officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met in closed session in committee room 2.
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AGENCY REVIEW
Consideration of the operations of certain agencies, boards and commissions.
CENTRAL LAKE ONTARIO CONSERVATION AUTHORITY
The Vice-Chair (Mr Allan K. McLean): I'd like to call the meeting back to order with the presentation this morning from Central Lake Ontario Conservation Authority. I understand you have a slide presentation. If you'd like to introduce yourself, who you are and your positions, the floor is yours.
Mr Irv Harrell: Thank you very much, Mr Vice-Chairman. My name is Irv Harrell and I'm the chairman of the Central Lake Ontario Conservation Authority. I am pleased to be here in response to your invitation to appear before the committee. I'd like to introduce Mr William Campbell, our chief executive administrative officer, and Mr Ron Folk, our comptroller.
I'd like to give you just a little bit of background. First of all, I've just completed my first year as chairman, and Tuesday evening of this week I was re-elected to start my second term. I look forward with great anticipation to the second year. As well as being chairman of CLOCA, I'm a member of Durham regional council and Oshawa municipal council.
CLOCA, for your information, will be celebrating its 35th anniversary this year. It is located in the region of Durham, which is composed of eight municipalities, with a population of approximately 400,000 people. Seven of those eight municipalities are located within our watershed and have representation on our authority.
For your general information, we prepared a short slide presentation to provide you with background on the authority. I would now ask Mr Campbell, our chief administrative officer, to make that presentation, after which we would be pleased to answer any questions.
Mr William Campbell: I've got a half-dozen slides here. I'll just carry on with some commentary and hope the slides give us a better graphic to assist with some of the explanation.
This slide is a depiction of most of the conservation authorities in the province of Ontario. There is a total of 38 of these authorities. They cover approximately 10% of the area of the province and encompass approximately 90% of the population of the province.
The Central Lake Ontario Conservation Authority is this one right here fronting on Lake Ontario, the first one immediately east of the Metro authority, probably the one you're most familiar with.
If we get into some other discussion later on, particularly about amalgamations, I'm not sure if you have this particular document with you, but at least try and retain this kind of picture in mind and the configuration of other conservation authorities around us.
The next slide is simply going to be a blow-up of the area immediately around this authority and its watershed.
Mr Norman W. Sterling (Carleton): What population do you have in your watershed on your conservation authority?
Mr Campbell: The official number according to the statistics is approximately 216,000. The actual numbers are something just a little more. There is roughly the perimeter of the authority itself. Readily seen here are the major municipalities within the authority. Central to it is the city of Oshawa. To the west is the town of Whitby, and to the east approximately half of the town of Newcastle. Again on the west side, there's a little piece here, a sliver, of the town of Ajax, the town of Pickering, the township of Uxbridge, and right in the north end, a little piece of the township of Scugog.
The dimensions of the authority are roughly 20 miles along the waterfront and roughly 12 miles in depth from the lake north. The northern perimeter is along the Oak Ridges moraine and it's the split in the watershed right down the spine of the moraine.
Some of the features of the area include the moraine at the top end. Right through the middle, roughly along that line, is the former Lake Iroquois shoreline, a significant feature and quite a natural amenity and entity within the watershed. The major creeks: through the town of Whitby is Lynde Creek, not really visible on this print, but there's a better one. In the city of Oshawa there's the Oshawa Creek, right down through the heart of the city, and the Harmony Creek, towards the east end of the city of Oshawa; in Newcastle, the Black and Farewell creeks, which actually join the Harmony down at the waterfront here in Oshawa, and the Bowmanville-Soper combination out towards the east end of our portion of the town of Newcastle. These are the major watercourses within our jurisdiction.
While we're looking at the slide, it's probably worth noting that the authority's jurisdiction has also been extended three miles, or five kilometres, south of our southern perimeter into Lake Ontario. That's common with all authorities fronting on the Great Lakes, and that's to give them some jurisdiction over the near shore areas.
Another feature of this particular watershed is the degree of urbanization that has taken place here. Again, almost from this line south, most of that area now is built up and it's all densely urbanized. To the north of it, it's more open, more rural. When we go around the watershed here with a members' tour, it's one of the things we normally point out to them. We sit in our boardroom and we discuss all kinds of problems with urbanization and enforcement of our regulations. It seems to be all urban kinds of activities, but when you get out there and drive around, it's really amazing how much of it -- in fact, the majority of the area -- is still rural.
On the next slide, what I want to depict on this one -- again, you can see the perimeter of our watershed. We're almost unique in the province, but not quite; there is one other authority in the same situation as us. We are totally enclosed by one municipality. You'll appreciate from the Conservation Authorities Act that it's the upper tier, the regional municipality, that is the member municipality on the authority. So here we have one member municipality; a lot of local municipalities but only the one member municipality. That's probably something most other authorities would dream about. It sure simplifies a great deal of our activity. Then there's the other side of it. You have nowhere else to go if you have some proposals.
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This slide is intended to depict the organizational structure of the authority. The full board, the block at the top, is comprised of 15 members. Two of these members are provincial appointees; the other 13 are all members of Durham regional council. The full authority meets on a monthly basis and the executive committee is comprised of seven people, including the chairman and vice-chairman. It meets on a monthly basis as well.
The balance of the structure is the three major departments within the authority.
The comptroller's office -- Mr Folk is with us today -- handles the interior office management as well as the financial aspects of the authority's operation.
The areas manager: The way I like to describe this is that this is the world's view of our conservation authority. We have a dozen park areas, our conservation areas. People can come out and view these areas and get that view of the authority and its operation. In large measure, that is the public perspective of the conservation authority. We operate these parks.
There is a great deal more to our operation, though, and that's controlled over in this department. Using the same sort of analogy, this is the authority's view of the rest of the world. We are looking out through our regulation, through the planning review we do on activities around us.
It's probably a good point, the place here, just to indicate this department. This is where much of the authority's own vision in its vision statement takes place, where human needs are met in balance with the needs of the natural environment. Again, this is how the authority views the rest of the world; this is how the world views the authority.
Here's a topic which I'm afraid is unavoidable. We want to show you some changes that have occurred in the last decade. You can see a slight increase in the percentage of funding that comes from the municipalities, a slight increase in the funding we generate internally and a drop in the proportion of funding we receive from the province. This is the downloading you hear about all the time. The pie gets bigger but the provincial share of it does not increase in the same proportion. You can see just in a decade what's happening here. We like to say we have an equal partnership and the province is picking up 50% of the tab. You can see from this that other sources are putting in twice as many dollars as the province in our operation. That's funding.
The next slide is expenditures. What I'm trying to depict with this particular one is the very major shift in the kinds of activities that go on with the authority now.
One complaint we seem to hear chronically about authority operations is the proportion of total spending that goes into administration. This is pure administration here and I think you can see it from this side. In my opinion, it is not a horrendous proportion, the 18% to 22% here.
Where the big difference is occurring is in capital expenditures. We like to get out and build things, do major works out in the watershed and demonstrate some visibility in that fashion. That end of the operation is being eaten up, principally in the change in the support categories of expenditures and maintenance. This reflects the levels of activity that are going on, where people have to get involved in things like the plan review again, where we take some particular pains to look at development proposals that are going on.
In the conservation authority we take some particular pains to review legislative proposals, things like the Crombie report and paper of that nature. There's an awful lot of time that goes into this kind of thing. It's planning. I think it stands us in good stead, but there's an awful lot of effort that goes into that.
Mr Sterling: Were 1982 and 1992 typical of the years around them in terms of these proportions?
Mr Campbell: Yes, they're fairly typical. I didn't single them out for any particular reason other than just to give you something current and show you how the trends have changed in the last decade.
Mr Sterling: I was just concerned with 1982 that there wasn't some great big capital project that --
Mr Campbell: Skewed the pie?
Mr Sterling: Yes.
Mr Campbell: No, that was not the case. The message here is that we're spending more time shuffling papers and less time getting out in the field and doing some of the activities we would really like to be doing.
I didn't want to finish on funding, that always seems to be a sour note, so my last slide here shows you some of the areas the conservation authority owns and operates. These are the park areas. Just to give you some idea of the overall scale, these two bigger ones encompass approximately 600 acres. All told, the authority owns approximately 3,000 acres of land. If you look at the bottom of the slide, that says 14. In fact, the authority owns 12 conservation areas. There are a couple shown here which are really not standalone areas. One is right there, number 6, and the other is number 8. That's about a 16-acre parcel that is in the process of being sold back to the municipality. So there are 12 areas there in total.
Another general perception of conservation areas -- you can see it here -- is that they are somehow water-related. Here you can see that the watercourse goes right through the site. Here you have the lakefront and again over here. This is not always the case though. Remember, this is the spine of the moraine up here. We've got one area up here and another large one over here. This is up on dry, high, sandy soils. The only water in the vicinity is groundwater, if you go deep enough.
What I'm trying to explain with this slide is that all of these areas are multi-use. There isn't a single one that's dedicated to any particular purpose. The authority operates a campground. We have a maple sugar bush, we have cross-country skiing, we have bridle trails and walking trails and we have boating and canoeing and fishing and all these other kinds of activities.
Each of these areas provides quite a different group of activities obviously tailored to the site characteristics, but a very broad range of activities on each site. Again, no single site is devoted to simply one single activity.
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Mr Brad Ward (Brantford): In numbers 1 and 9 there appears to be differently owned land in the middle of each block. Do you know what that is?
Mr Campbell: Yes, sir. This one hurts. We call this the hole in the doughnut. It is privately owned. We've been trying for years and years to get that site. We can't afford not to have it. It's a major impediment to the progress of our development on this site. Number 9 is the same situation: The lighter colours there are privately owned lots.
That concludes my presentation, Mr Chairman.
Mr Daniel Waters (Muskoka-Georgian Bay): Is it developed land or is it just a farm that's sitting in there?
Mr Campbell: No. You may recall I said that there's a swamp right through the middle of our watershed, the Lake Iroquois shoreline, so you can associate sands and gravels with that beach area. That's what that is. It's a worked-out gravel pit. There's another one right there and the same up in this other site. There are some active gravel pits up there. Again, this is what hurts. The Ministry of Natural Resources licenses these pits and that licence is an expensive commodity.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you for your presentation. I wonder, Mr Campbell, if you would take five minutes or less to update us a little more with regard to the support. It appears your capital is down 30% and your support is up 30%, and the regulations you're dealing with -- could you give us a little more detail on how that has affected the change from 1982 to 1992?
Mr Campbell: I shall endeavour to, sir. The authority is within the Golden Horseshoe, albeit getting towards the easterly extreme of it but still in a very active area. There's been a tremendous growth in population in our area of jurisdiction just in the last 10 to 15 years. The authority has its entire site regulated for fill and construction. The entire watershed is also floodplain-mapped. We have a report dealing with environmental sensitivity of lands, again covering the entire watershed. We have another report that depicts lands the authority would like to own or would like to preserve through some trust, either as a regional parks linear, open system or by outright ownership as a conservation area.
We have all this background documentation and when there is some proposal for a change in land use these items are brought to bear on the proposal. It's again an area that gets a great deal of scrutiny, and our watershed particularly because of the degree of urbanization that has occurred there. Almost going back to our vision statement, this is how the authority has maybe evolved and matured, particularly in the urbanized areas. One used to think of conservation authorities as protecting people from floods and watercourses. That's evolved now to where we are trying to protect the watercourses from the people and the effects of urbanization.
The Vice-Chair: What's been the increase in staff in that department from 1982 to 1992?
Mr Campbell: In that period we have taken on two people, sir.
The Vice-Chair: That doesn't really explain the 30% increase in support that you're talking about. Are people involved in that now other than the ones you've hired?
Mr Campbell: No, sir, it's simply the level of activity, things like getting a SPANS computer system. In fact the whole office has been revolutionized in getting computer systems in to deal with this.
Mr Ward: The whole office was automated?
Mr Campbell: Some office automation, yes, but it's basically salaries and the level of activity that's been devoted to these things.
The Vice-Chair: Mr Marchese, do you have some questions?
Mr Rosario Marchese (Fort York): Just on that particular point. What I'm understanding is that the level of work you are doing within that support graph has increased not just in terms of people but in terms of the work that is required and therefore needing people as well. Is that what has happened in the last 10 years that is different prior to 1982 that then evolved after 1982? Is that the case?
Mr Campbell: If I understand the question, sir, that's the portion of our budget where we get into legal entanglements if there are developments, the enforcement of a regulation. So legal costs have certainly gone up, staff time and extra time in that department, mapping, the studies, the cost of these things is an expensive component, just activities of that nature. It's obviously not simply staff salaries.
Mr Bernard Grandmaître (Ottawa East): When you look at your expenditures of 1982, and let's look at the capital projects that were initiated in those years, 58% of your total expenditures were for capital projects and in 1992 only 22%. Does that mean you have reached the end of your capital projects, or are very close to it?
Mr Campbell: No, sir, it means we've reached the end of the level of funding that would support these activities. If there was more funding available, there's all kinds of projects. Certainly land acquisition would be a major one. As I've mentioned, we own about 3,000 acres of about 10,000 acres we would like to have. When our own program was put together, the 20-year plan, that was 20 years ago. We should have been up there at 10,000 acres now; we're at 3,000.
Mr Grandmaître: You do own 3,000 acres at the present time. When was the last time you acquired land?
Mr Campbell: In 1982.
Mr Grandmaître: That was the last time you acquired land?
Mr Campbell: Excuse me, 1992, sir. It was just a small building lot. We have not had a decent major acquisition since about 1985.
Mr Grandmaître: But you've identified, let's say, 10,000 acres you would like to acquire.
Mr Campbell: Yes, sir. I should point out these would not be new areas. We're simply looking at consolidating our holdings and something inside or just adjacent to the perimeter of our existing areas, not starting up new areas elsewhere.
Mr Grandmaître: Can you not expropriate, with the cooperation of those municipalities, if you really require those lands? For instance, in block 1 and in block 9, these people who are land-locked, can you not expropriate through the municipalities if they're really needed?
Mr Campbell: We would not have to go through municipalities, sir. The authorities do have expropriation powers.
Mr Grandmaître: Do you have the authority to expropriate?
Mr Campbell: Yes, sir.
Mr Grandmaître: Why don't you?
Mr Campbell: It takes money that doesn't exist.
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Mr Grandmaître: Can you not convince the ministry that it is needed for our own -- right now we're looking at planning. The John Sewell people are looking at the possibility of revamping the planning and the development that goes on in this province. Don't you think the needed additional 7,000 acres are of provincial interest and this government is saying, if it has a provincial interest, "Then we should acquire those lands"?
Mr Campbell: I would very much like to think that is the case, sir. Again, there are any number of available lands sitting there now that would consume our budget for years in advance. We don't have to expropriate. They're there and waiting for an offer from the authority.
Mr Grandmaître: My next and final question, Mr Chair: Let's take block 1, for instance, because that was the most noticeable. This piece of privately owned land is useless as far as the owner is concerned. What if I were the owner of that piece of land and I wanted to obtain a building permit? You would certainly appeal to the municipality.
Mr Campbell: If we could, yes. It is one entity. It's a worked-out gravel pit. In fact, the property owner would be able to obtain a building permit for one residence on that site and we would not have any recourse to appeal that. It's about 80 acres, that hole in the doughnut.
Mr Grandmaître: And you don't have the mechanism, you don't have the regulations to appeal to the municipality if they were to apply for a building permit? You don't have the mechanism to prevent this?
Mr Campbell: Not in an instance where all the zoning is in place and everything else. An individual could simply go and get a permit for it. If it requires a change in the land use --
Mr Grandmaître: That's right. That would be a major --
Mr Campbell: -- then yes, we have the flexibility to do that, but not when those things are in place.
Mr James J. Bradley (St Catharines): You have no doubt at least looked, perhaps, at the outline or the executive summary of the Sewell commission report or followed the Sewell commission's deliberations to this point. How do you believe you fit in, in terms of the general thrust of the Sewell commission so far?
Mr Campbell: The authority has done an internal report on this, Mr Bradley. Basically, the conclusions were, we certainly like the emphasis Mr Sewell is placing on environmental concerns. That's the business we're in. What we see as not coming out of this report, at least yet, is some means of enacting, through the authorities directly, some of the influences we would like to exert on development. In other words, he singled out the environment as a concern and the report says this should be looked after, but it doesn't say how it's to be done. We see that as a major omission.
Mr Bradley: You have not met with anyone from the commission yet. Would I be correct in assuming that?
Mr Campbell: We have not had a presentation in front of the commission; that's correct, sir.
Mr Bradley: I know they are going around the province.
Mr Campbell: I understand they will be out in our vicinity shortly.
Mr Bradley: Do you plan to make a submission at that time, or has that not been decided yet?
Mr Campbell: The report that was adopted by our board has been sent to the commission, so it is well aware of our concern and, as well, it was sent on to the association of authorities for advancement to the commission.
Mr Bradley: To move a little bit to another area, in terms of enforcement, one of the problems conservation authorities must encounter -- no doubt all branches of government do -- is people who don't believe you have anything to back up your authority, the people who say: "I'm still going to build on this land because I don't think the commission has this power. I'll just phone my local MPP and all will be fine." Do you experience problems with people believing you don't have any enforcement capability on your planning areas and your pronouncements?
Mr Campbell: We do. It's not really a problem. We've got one rather celebrated case where an individual put up a building, went through the whole drill in trying to appeal the authority's decision. It was refused. He went and put up a building anyway. We did get a court decision to have it removed, but again that's expensive. It's also very rare.
This authority has had its regulations in effect for approximately 20 years. The municipalities themselves are well aware that they're there. Normally what happens is an individual, if he wants to build something, goes to the municipality to get his building permit. If he's in an area regulated by the authority, then he's very quickly scooted over to the authority to get a construction permit from the authority first before the municipality will even deal with his building permit. So it is locked up in that fashion. It's rare that we would have a problem along those lines.
Mr Bradley: The Ministry of the Environment, which you deal with from time to time -- I know you're under the auspices of Natural Resources, but there have been representations made to government that conservation authorities may be able to do some of the work that the Ministry of the Environment staff are now mandated to do or at least have been given authority to do. Has your authority made representations to the government on what activities you believe you can best handle, as opposed to the Ministry of the Environment?
I think the auditor has identified overlap. It seemed to me in the last auditor's report that the auditor wasn't happy with what was happening. One of the suggestions has been that the conservation authority be the authority so that we don't have a wrestling match between Natural Resources, the local municipality -- it would have to be a tag-team match in this case -- and the Ministry of the Environment. Have you made representations or made offers in that direction?
Mr Campbell: Yes, we have. This authority feels there's a great deal of duplication between our efforts and the Ministry of Natural Resources and between our efforts and to some degree the Ministry of the Environment, so I think a great deal of streamlining could be effected in eliminating some of that duplication.
Mr Bradley: I realize that you may have to go back to the authority and so on, and it's sometimes difficult to speak entirely for everyone on the authority at a particular time, but would you be prepared to yield more control to the province in terms of the provincial appointments, for instance, in exchange for more authority? In other words, perhaps putting the chase on the Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Natural Resources, which will be involved with you, to put it kindly, in many cases. Are you prepared to say, "We will take these on and we will also allow a greater proportion of provincial appointees being from the province as opposed to the municipalities"?
Mr Campbell: I would take that to be a political rather than a technical question, Mr Bradley, and I will defer to the chairman for a response.
Mr Harrell: Thank you very much, Mr Campbell. I think that's a wise move.
It's an interesting question that has never been posed to me before, and I've never really given it any thought. I think it's important for the committee to understand that all the members of Central Lake Ontario Conservation Authority are members of Durham regional council, so they are elected representatives, with the exception of two who are provincial appointees.
The region of Durham, of course, funds CLOCA to approximately 50% of its budget. I would think that the region of Durham would have some concerns about a change in representation if its funding level is going to remain the same.
Mr Bradley: I should yield the floor to somebody else because you have other customers. Mr Sterling is eager to ask questions, I see.
The Vice-Chair: Mr Marchese had some questions, but he has to step --
Mr Marchese: I defer to Mr Sterling, Mr Chairman. I will ask my questions later.
The Vice-Chair: Okay.
Mr Sterling: Could you tell me, what is your total staff complement at the conservation authority?
The Vice-Chair: The chairman should know that right off by heart.
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Mr Harrell: He should, but he doesn't. I believe 45, but we'll ask Mr Campbell to answer that.
Mr Campbell: I'm hesitating in my response here because there are people who float, on contracts, or are employed under other programs.
The complement, as it currently stands, is 24 permanent full-time staff, three contract people and we currently have an additional 11 seasonal people on staff.
Mr Sterling: How many of those positions -- either in position or in money -- would be associated with the 3,000 acres that you're holding? How much of the work would be associated with that?
The Vice-Chair: Field staff.
Mr Campbell: There are, I believe, nine people involved in the field work.
Mr Sterling: My view of conservation authorities is, you shouldn't have any land other than perhaps the building in which you administer. I find your holdings extremely high for a relatively small conservation authority. In fact, I think that your holdings would outstrip the combination of the three conservation authorities that I represent. They would be bigger than yours by maybe 100 times -- Mississippi Valley Conservation Authority, the Rideau Valley Conservation Authority, the South Nation River Conservation Authority -- yet you have probably more holdings than all of those three combined.
The other thing that I find a little different about your conservation authority, and maybe you can help me here, is you don't have a major watercourse going through your conservation authority, as I look at the maps etc. You don't have major river that goes through it; is that correct?
Mr Campbell: I think that's a pretty relative term. For instance, the Oshawa Creek -- one of the ones I outlined to you -- under regional flood conditions, would carry the same volume of water as the Grand River under regional flood conditions.
Mr Sterling: Is there another conservation authority like yours along the lake which doesn't have sort of a major watercourse or a major river?
Mr Campbell: I'm not that familiar with the detail.
Mr Sterling: It just seems to me that of all the conservation authorities that might lend themselves to amalgamation, which has been talked about to a very high degree over the last period of time, yours seems to say maybe this is the one. I don't think that joining with the one for Toronto is a go. I think they probably have enough to do and they're covering a large area with a great number of people involved in it.
The Minister of Natural Resources has said, "Do this voluntarily," but I have never met any bureaucratic group that has ever said that it wants to amalgamate with another bureaucratic group. It has to be done with some encouragement, if you want to put it kindly that way. Is there any commonality with the people to the north or the northeast or the east with regard to your conservation authority?
Mr Campbell: There most certainly is. Mr Bob Burgar, in his first review of amalgamations, did propose that our authority meld with the authority to our east, which is the Ganaraska, and that the authority north of us, the Kawartha, meld with the authority east of it, the Otonabee. You've got two east-west amalgamations proposed.
Mr Ballinger, in his review of the Burgar report, suggested that our authority could join with the authority to the north of us, the Kawartha -- in other words, vertically -- and to the east the same idea: the vertical alignment. So if it works on the horizontal alignment and it works on the vertical alignment, why doesn't the whole thing work? It could.
We have looked at this, and there are easily a dozen viable proposals for amalgamation. One extreme would be simply to remain the way we are. Others amalgamate, and this has to be viewed in the very long term: 20 years from now, I don't see our authority remaining as a viable operation if others amalgamate and we don't, so we don't see that as realistic.
The other extreme to that is that the authority itself disappear, and that could happen in many ways. It could be partitioned, pared off to surrounding authorities. It could be assimilated by Durham region. Our board is all regional councillors; 40% of the regional council is on our board. We could be the regional parks department.
Between those two extremes, we've expressed our own preference.
Mr Sterling: What is your preference?
Mr Campbell: The one the board adopted was to grow west, assimilate part of Metro, to what I think is a natural line of demarcation, and that's the Rouge River Valley and the provincial park that's there; grow north to encompass a great deal more of Durham region; and grow east to something short of the Ganaraska forest and the river and that area. The reason for containing it in that fashion is that you can actually tailor the perimeter to something very close to the perimeter of Durham region. There are all kinds of good things that come out of trying to get some semblance of having these two jurisdictions cover the same turf.
Mr Sterling: So you would leave the traditional way of doing it on a watershed basis? That's what your proposal says.
Mr Campbell: That would evolve from this suggestion. One of the major reasons for that kind of suggestion is the Oak Ridges moraine. Right now, as I've indicated on some of the slides, the moraine is split right down the spine, and that means you've got any number of different jurisdictions involved in it. It would be a great deal simpler for something of provincial significance, like the moraine, to have one-window shopping for any proposals that come along.
Mr Sterling: My view is that the conservation authorities being broken down on the watershed boundaries is the most logical. I think it should be done on the basis of a scientific split rather than an arbitrary split, which municipal boundaries are, as set up by the surveyors a long time ago.
I would really like to see conservation authorities be the ultimate authority in terms of water control or water quality within their watersheds. That, along with the floodplain regulation, is really the role I would like to see evolve out of them.
Right now, we have a real problem in Ontario. We have nobody who is responsible for water quality in our rivers. This is not just true of the present government; this is what has evolved. When a constituent comes in and talks to me about water quality in the Rideau River, I say: "The province is involved because it's involved with the sewage of Smiths Falls, Kemptville and all along the river. The Ministry of Agriculture of Ontario is involved because of the fertilizers that are being used along the river. The federal government is involved because it's involved with the water flow, and it deals with quantity. We have the Ministry of the Environment involved. We have the Ministry of Natural Resources involved."
My humble opinion is that the conservation authorities should be taking a much greater role in terms of water quality, like the role they are fulfilling in terms of floodplain, and I think that process has to cleaned up.
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I think it's interesting, but I don't agree with your proposal because of my seeing what is happening in the future in terms of conservation. I think they should also have a very much larger role in the planning area and should have more influence over municipal politicians in terms of planning, particularly official plans and that kind of thing. I know municipal politicians won't like that.
The Vice-Chair: And your question is?
Mr Sterling: My question is, do you agree with me?
Mr Robert Frankford (Scarborough East): I wonder if you could make some comments on how Mr Crombie's approach relates to you and what discussion and thoughts you've had.
Mr Campbell: The Crombie commission report has been presented to our board, with a staff report. We very much favour the ecosystem approach Mr Crombie is espousing. It's something we've been doing for 20 years, very much so, along the waterfront. So most certainly we agree with him.
There were something like 83 recommendations in that report. They don't all pertain to conservation authorities and I'm obviously not going to try and address all of them. There were a couple of observations, though. I'll try and find those specific comments here.
One of the recommendations was that conservation authorities be given a lead role in this ecosystem-based watershed management. Most certainly we agree, if one can define what an ecosystem is. The previous speaker agrees with a watershed basis. Watershed doesn't necessarily include an ecosystem: The Oak Ridges moraine splits the watershed, and if you're going to have some control over it, then the watershed division doesn't work in an instance like that.
There's a suggestion that membership in conservation authorities include more representatives of local environmental and conservation groups. Our board did adopt this report. Now, appreciate that the authority members are appointed by the municipality, so we don't have a great deal of say in who actually gets appointed to the board, but the authority has adopted that principle, that we need more involvement from people outside the political system. Have I covered your --
Mr Frankford: Thank you.
The Vice-Chair: I'd like a couple of clarifications; the comptroller could probably answer them for me. When you have some of those capital projects, surveys and studies, is your field staff's salaries worked into the cost of that capital project, so you get part of a grant to help pay for that staff time?
Mr Ron Folk: No, sir. It is the incremental cost of the project. For example, if a quote comes in, a lot of preparatory work is done by our administrative staff. If a tender comes in, for example, that erosion control is $50,000, it is that $50,000 that is reported as the capital cost. The infrastructure of support of the office in that is continued to be funded by the administrative portion.
The Vice-Chair: I'm talking about your field staff: You have a supervisor in the field; he has men working for him; you're doing an erosion control project. Are the salaries of those staff involved in helping with that project, their time, in the cost of that project?
Mr Folk: No, sir. They would be reported as maintenance staff. It generally would not be the case anyway.
The Vice-Chair: We used to do that, anyhow.
The chairman is here. This is the third time I've had the opportunity; the third chairman who has been here in the last year. I notice that your honorarium is about $2,500; it's not great. We have had the occasion to ask the chairman, with regard to his chief executive officer and his key people, what salary range they're in. We don't ask what their salary is, but we'd like you to give us an indication within $2,000 or $3,000 of what the salaries of your key people, such as your chief executive officer, would be.
Mr Harrell: The chief administrative officer is in the range of $80,000.
The Vice-Chair: And your comptroller?
Mr Harrell: The comptroller is in the range of $50,000.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you. Any other questions?
Mr Waters: Not all conservation authorities have the same situation. You have a regional municipality, and then you have municipalities within that. At the municipal level, when you put the finger on them for their support, is it on the region, is it on the individual municipalities within the region, or is it a combination of both?
Mr Campbell: The municipal levy must go to the member municipality, so it's to the region, the higher tier.
Mr Waters: So you wouldn't be putting anything back on to the town or the community within that.
The Vice-Chair: I'd like a clarification. Does the benefiting municipality pay any more share than the overall region?
Mr Campbell: No, sir. The apportionment would be just as any other cost the region would bear, whether it's police enforcement or the regional clerk's department. All those costs are apportioned, including the conservation authority. It's simply like another department in the region.
Mr Waters: Another thing: I understand that this year you received some additional local erosion control funding. Obviously you have a problem with erosion. Is this something ongoing, or is it something that's a one-time shot? With erosion control, I would assume that in an urban conservation authority, you have problems that are different from a more rural one; you have different impacts upon that. I guess I'm asking whether it's a regular five or 10 years you have to go out and do this erosion control, or is it something you can put in place --
Mr Campbell: Your assumption is correct, Mr Waters. Erosion control is the largest part of our capital projects. If you just picture in your mind the watershed we have, of course all the municipalities originated along the lake and on a creek: They needed the water there as a potable supply, for transportation and for water power. As the municipalities expanded and grew away from the lake, the old portions that were originally built were down in the floodplain, and as they expand, you get increased runoff from those lands and you continually aggravate the problems that existed in the old parts of these municipalities. So yes, we have a lot of built-in problems of backlog, of flood and erosion problems, to deal with in all of our waterfront municipalities. We hope that the planning we do would see that these things don't get any worse. We're trying to keep up as development occurs. That is a major part of our activity.
Mr Waters: On your one slide -- actually, the slide you have right in front of you -- it was pointed out, these privately owned sections within that, for the other members; it's these blocks. You twigged on something when you mentioned that. Have you historically got into rehabilitation of abandoned aggregate pits, to use and to rehabilitate and do something in a conservation nature for them, or is that something that conservation authorities in general do?
Mr Campbell: I really wouldn't care to generalize on what other authorities do, but yes, our authority has been involved, only in a minor way, in some rehabilitation.
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Mr Waters: I'm curious. What would you do with an abandoned aggregate pit? As someone from up in central Ontario, we don't have the problem to the same extent, but when you drive around the northern fringe of the metropolitan area here, there are either working or abandoned pits everywhere. What can a conservation authority do with those pits to rehabilitate them or make use of them in some form?
Mr Campbell: Let's talk specifics. The one site that you made reference to and that I had mentioned when the slide was up on the screen was this hole in the doughnut. It's an 80-acre worked-out pit surrounded by other authority holdings. It has a gravel base, a perfect place for a parking lot. That is ultimately what is in our master plan: Stylize the area a bit with some grading so it doesn't look quite so flat and like a moonscape. But you've got a gravel base in there.
Mr Waters: It's not down into the groundwater or anything like a lot of pits, where they end up with a lake.
Mr Campbell: This one is not. It's a perfect place for a parking lot. That would be the main entrance to our conservation area. You get people to have ready access to the rest of the area, because you're parked right in the middle of it.
The Vice-Chair: We've got four other members who'd like to ask questions, if we could keep in mind the time of the clock. Go ahead. Have you any further questions, Mr Waters?
Mr Waters: I guess in these times the number one issue with everybody is money. If we were to take money aside -- set that issue aside -- what would be the next issue that would be your biggest concern or that you would like to deal with? We all have dollar problems; that's common throughout in a recession.
Mr Campbell: I believe it was Mr Sterling who touched on this, the fantastic number of jurisdictions that have their fingers in the pie in just about any issue we get involved in. I think he said there isn't one jurisdiction, for instance, overseeing water problems. The problem isn't that there isn't one; there are too many of them and the jurisdictions aren't clear. For instance, in the Conservation Authorities Act, it says the conservation authority has some responsibilities for pollution. You don't tell that to the MOE or you get your feet stomped on. The authorities, for instance, have some responsibilities for waterfront management. Then you get into problems with the Minister of Natural Resources and the Lakes and Rivers Improvement Act and all these kinds of things. There are too many people involved in it.
As to what the province is going through with its municipalities and disentanglement, I think that kind of an exercise is sorely needed to either have some lead agency overall responsible for watershed management or water management, or some clear direction on what we're doing with this thing. There's too much overlap right now. It's very cumbersome, very expensive.
Mr Waters: I apologize; I was out for a couple of minutes and I don't know whether it was asked, but as to the Sewell report and the potential impacts coming from Mr Sewell, do you see that having a major impact or, shall we say, a clearing of the water if those things are adopted, so that we know who has responsibility for what?
Mr Campbell: We addressed that a bit earlier, Mr Waters. Yes, we like the emphasis on environmental concerns that are expressed in the Sewell report. The fault we see with the report is that it doesn't finger any particular agency in dealing with all these disparate problems in jurisdictions.
Mr Waters: That would be all I have here at the moment.
Mr Tony Rizzo (Oakwood): The committee that was established by the Minister of Natural Resources agreed that there are 18 items which constitute all authorities' core mandate; for example, flood and erosion control. How much of your expenditure is for the core mandate items and how much for the rest? Do you have any information about that?
Mr Campbell: Because most of our activities are at least eligible for provincial grants, I guess they would all then qualify as being core. The only thing that doesn't is maintenance of our areas, which is not funded by the province. So all of our activities then would be core mandate.
Mr Rizzo: So there is no dispute between the interpretation by the ministry of core mandate and your interpretation of core mandate or core issues.
Mr Campbell: I think our authority is very clear on the distinctions there, sir, and we do not have any dispute with it.
The Vice-Chair: Perhaps I could get a clarification from the committee. There are about three more members who want to ask questions. Would you like to maybe go to 12:30 and finish, or would you like to come back at 2 o'clock? Would the first choice be appropriate? We'll share the time then until 12:30.
I want to ask the people. In the kit that we got, we've got a whole bunch of maps, a lot of material. Would you like them back? I think they cost money to make. I know I have no further use for them, and I'm sure a lot of members have no further use for them. They're a costly item and I just wondered if you wanted some of them back.
Mr Campbell: Yes, sir. If they're available, yes, we'll take them back.
The Vice-Chair: Thank you.
Mr John C. Cleary (Cornwall): I had two questions, but one has been pretty well answered, on the gravel pit issue.
The second one I know comes up in every discussion that I've been involved in over the last three years, and that's money. I was just wondering, I don't think we heard today what the percentage increases were for your staff over the last three years.
Mr Campbell: Last year it was possibly 3%. The year before, it was also 3%, and the year prior to that 4.5% to 5%, I'd say.
Mr Cleary: Thank you.
The Vice-Chair: Mr Grandmaître, Bob Runciman has a question while you're getting ready.
Mr Robert W. Runciman (Leeds-Grenville): I just want to briefly pursue something Mr Sterling was mentioning, and it's about amalgamation. You made reference to the Ballinger study, I guess we'll call it, talking about amalgamation and being a sort of voluntary process. I'm not really familiar with how the encouragement was offered by the province, but you mentioned your own preferred option, if you will. I'm just wondering what's happening internally. Are you doing anything in that respect on a voluntary basis, or are agencies such as yours sitting back and waiting until the stick is pulled out by the provincial government? What's happening in terms of amalgamation? Anything at all?
Mr Campbell: That is not a current item with our authority. We're not aware of any incentives or encouragements or inducements that were applied. We have analysed some of the suggestions that were made. Some of them were good and some less so. We don't see it as being particularly advantageous for our authority and for the municipalities.
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Mr Runciman: How about for the ratepayers? You don't see that as advantageous in terms of taxpayers, ratepayers? What's the aim of amalgamation? Is it not to make you more efficient units? Is that not hopefully the aim of this exercise?
Mr Campbell: Unfortunately, with an increase in efficiency there's a loss of autonomy. When our own members looked at this question, they felt that they would like to be the representatives of the populace, and if you got into some larger conglomerate, a lot of that kind of detailed representation would be lost.
Mr Runciman: You mentioned earlier that about 40% of your board are representatives from the region, regional councillors?
Mr Campbell: I think the remark was that we have 13 regional council members on our board. That represents 40% of regional council.
Mr Runciman: I see. You also showed us the pie in terms of your financial situation and the increasing load being placed upon the municipal taxpayer to fund your operations. What's been the reaction of the municipality, the region, in terms of this increasing burden that's being placed upon it? What's happening in that respect, anything?
Mr Harrell: In the last two years, last year and again this year, the region essentially has given us budget guidelines. Those budget guidelines have been in the neighbourhood of 2% over the previous year. We achieved that budget situation in 1992. We'll be appearing before our regional finance committee next Thursday and we're on target with the 2% above last year.
I would expect that we may well be cut back, when we get to the regional finance committee, to the same level as last year but that's generally where we are.
Mr Runciman: You mentioned earlier in one of the slide presentations that you're in process of a sale of a particular piece of property to the municipality, I gather. I just wonder if you're looking at other alternatives in terms of perhaps sale or lease of property with stipulations upon the lease so that it's utilized for purposes that you'd like to see it utilized for. Are you looking at innovative ways of still accomplishing your goals and doing the job you were originally assigned?
Mr Harrell: Just to deal with the issue of the sale of that piece of property, that particular piece of property has been a long, ongoing issue. It was 16 acres that were originally identified for acquisition in our long-range acquisition plan. At that time, we had intended to acquire additional property within the town of Whitby. That property was not available, so essentially we ended up with 16 acres that were of no future potential value to us.
The city of Oshawa expressed an interest because it could add it to some parkland or lakefront property adjacent to existing land that it owns, so we had assessments made and the deal was struck on the basis of the appraised value.
Mr Runciman: But you're not looking at other sales or leases, those kinds of things, to try and deal with your --
Mr Harrell: We're not currently looking at the sale of any property. It's an issue that came up before and it's not something the current members of the authority feel they would like to do. They don't want to divest themselves of property when our acquisition plan shows that we would like to acquire 10,000 acres and we only have 3,000. Unless we find a small piece that is of no value to us, we would not be divesting.
Mr Runciman: Thank you, Mr Chairman.
Mr Grandmaître: Tell me about provincial grants. How satisfied are you? You have 20 minutes.
The Vice-Chair: Or less.
Mr Campbell: A fair question. The lack, or should I say the shortcomings in provincial funding are a major impediment to us buying land, to us developing land, to the other capital programs: watercourse improvements, either erosion control, which helps fish habitat, or flood control to protect the residents. These things are seriously thwarted because of the shortfall in capital dollars.
We could spend a lot more, with the staff complement we have, and get out and do these kinds of capital projects, rather than be shuffling papers, and we would dearly love to be in that kind of a position. Obviously, it does inhibit virtually all the activities the authority would like to be into.
Mr Grandmaître: When you look at the total picture, the 10-year picture from 1982 to 1992, the provincial grants have been decreasing. In other words, they're downloading more and more responsibilities on the conservation authorities, like any other agency or boards or commissions, I guess, so you have to find other ways to fund your programs.
I notice there that internal funding sources has increased by some 4% over the last four years. Can you tell me about this internal source? What is it? Back in 1982 it was 3.7% and in 1992 it's 7.5%. You did show that slide. It's one of your slides.
Mr Campbell: Yes, sir. Some of the activities that generate these kinds of fees are administrative services.
Mr Grandmaître: Chargebacks?
Mr Campbell: These are fees for hearings, for legal inquiries, things of that nature. That's certainly a major source. We operate a boat launch. I guess none of these are particularly big numbers. We're anticipating something in the order of $15,000 annually for the boat launch operation. Understand, though, please, these are gross revenues and do not reflect some of the built-in operating costs for these things as well.
The authority operates a campsite. That brings in about $35,000 a year. We just built a chalet for cross-country skiers. That brings in about $4,000 a year. Education fees I mentioned earlier in the slides, the multi-use of our areas. One was a maple syrup demonstration area. We do bring in school kids there by the busload and there is a fee for that. There's interest earned on investments, campsite revenues, property rentals where the authority buys some land. For instance, if it's agricultural land and we're not ready to undertake some development, we'll rent that back out to farmers. If some of the property happens to have a residence on it, we will rent that out to tenants. Generally, that's what comprises our revenues.
Mr Grandmaître: There's also been a very slight increase in the municipal levy or apportionments. What is the formula for the apportionments through the different municipalities? Is there a special formula? Is it assessment, is it total land perimeter or what? What is the formula to assess or to levy fees?
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Mr Campbell: We don't use the formula, again because we only have one municipality, so the apportionment is 100%. But it is apportioned to the municipalities in other conservation authorities now, based on the discounted equalized assessment or where there is a specific project within one municipality and they would pick up 100% of it. The operating costs are spread about on the basis of discounted equalized assessment. A capital project, the benefiting municipality or municipalities would share in that.
Mr Grandmaître: I have one last question. The fact that 13 of your 14 members are municipal councillors -- am I right?
Mr Campbell: It's 13 of 15, two provincial appointees.
Mr Grandmaître: Isn't there a danger for a conflict of interest?
Mr Harrell: In what respect?
Mr Grandmaître: I don't know; I'm asking you. You're municipal councillors, and I'm sure that the municipal council deals with the conservation authority. Isn't there a danger of conflict of interest? I don't have any facts before me; I'm just asking you the question.
Mr Harrell: Not in my view and certainly not in my experience. The representation on the authority, the 13 members who are regional councillors, come from seven municipalities within the region of Durham. Each of those seven municipalities makes recommendations to regional council with respect to his preference as to the appointee. Normally, regional council simply follows that recommendation.
Mr Grandmaître: That recommendation?
Mr Harrell: Yes.
Mr Grandmaître: But then you vote again on that recommendation at regional council, right?
Mr Harrell: That's correct.
Mr Grandmaître: So isn't there a danger of a conflict? I think Mr Runciman has a follow-up question.
Mr Runciman: Well, it's related. In the municipalities in my area, frequently councillors do not serve on the conservation authority; they appoint citizens from their own constituency to serve. I'm just surprised that in your situation they are all regional councillors, elected officials rather than citizen representatives.
Mr Harrell: Let me put that into a little bit of perspective. A few years ago, the authority was made up of members from the municipal councils and the regional council, so we had local councillors and regional councillors plus the provincial appointees sitting on the authority board. Two or three years ago, regional council changed its rules and decided that it wanted all the political appointees to be regional councillors rather than a mixture of regional and municipal. In my time, we have not had citizen appointees on the authority.
Mr Runciman: In essence, it's a committee of council; that's what it is.
Mr Harrell: Yes, it is. One of the reasons for that, from the regional council perspective, is because of the funding. There was a concern previously that there was not adequate representation for the funding that was being provided.
Mr Marchese: To follow up on some of those questions, I'll start with membership first. My interest is not as it might relate to conflict as much as why we wouldn't have an interest in appointing people who might have the knowledge of the field, through whom you would have similar accountability; not direct accountability by having a councillor, but you would want somebody who has the knowledge and the expertise. Is that being talked about? Is that a concern to the conservation authority board or staff or to the people of the community?
Mr Harrell: The rationale from the regional council perspective has always been that the members who are appointed from the member municipalities are indeed knowledgeable of the problems and concerns within that municipality, so that they form good representation.
Mr Marchese: I understand that the Crombie commission identifies this as a particular problem. Although you might say that a number of councillors have an interest or may be knowledgeable, Crombie himself says that perhaps that isn't the case and that what we could have in fact is more community membership in that board that would give greater knowledge to the field.
Mr Harrell: I understand the philosophy of it and I do believe that there's an opportunity for improvement there. But I'd suggest that one of the areas that is an opportunity for improvement would be for an authority such as CLOCA to more actively seek out input from some of the knowledgeable citizens within the watershed. It's probably something that we have not done to the extent that we should have in the past. We in all probability should have gone out to the community a bit more and sought input into our deliberations and, in particular, our public hearings.
Mr Marchese: Let me ask you --
Mr Frankford: Can I just --
The Vice-Chair: Supplementary.
Mr Frankford: Do citizens come to open meetings? Can they make submissions?
Mr Harrell: Absolutely. For instance, we had an issue -- it's an ongoing issue -- before the authority a few months ago. There is a community group that's known as the Friends of the Lynde Marsh. The Lynde Shores Conservation Area is a major conservation area within our watershed. There is some future development that will be occurring on the perimeter of the conservation area, and the Friends of the Lynde Marsh have expressed a sincere wish that an area be fenced.
We have listened to them as a delegation, taken into consideration their comments and asked staff to prepare a report and bring it back to the authority, at which time we will invite them back and deal with the issue. So we do receive delegations of that nature.
Mr Marchese: Related to this, I have a few questions.
The Vice-Chair: Two other members have questions, just to warn you.
Mr Marchese: To what extent are the community of Oshawa and the surrounding community aware of the work of the conservation authority and, similarly, to what extent are councillors or municipalities aware of the work you're doing?
Mr Harrell: The easy question to answer is the part that deals with the councillors. I think there is a broad general knowledge of the working of the conservation authority at the municipal level because we deal in the urban areas with a number of erosion control works that are readily evident to the members of council, and they've probably been areas of concern in past years.
The question with respect to the general public is a bit more difficult to answer. I think that certain segments of the public, particularly those who use our conservation area, are very knowledgeable about our workings. But how to quantify it, I really don't know.
Mr Marchese: I'd like to pursue that a little longer, but I'm going to rush my other questions; otherwise, I'll probably be cut off.
On the question of the CLOCA funding sources, the internal, self-generating dollars, from 1982 it was 3.7% and in 1992 it's 7.5%. Would you say that's a normal progression of increases from 1982 to 1992 relative to other conservation authorities? Would you know whether other conservation authorities have raised a lot more within the last 10 years? If so, what are they doing differently that you're not, and should you be looking at that?
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Mr Campbell: I don't have any information on the internal funding sources from other authorities.
Mr Marchese: Okay. My other question has to do with the funding that comes from provincial and municipal governments. I know Mr Grandmaître touched on this, although he referred to it as downloading, but I was looking at the figure from 1989, when the former government was in, and then looked at 1990, when the former government was still in. There was a slip there, it's true, in 1990 --
Mr Grandmaître: A serious slip.
Mr Marchese: But in 1991 it went up again: in 1990, $554,000, and in 1991, $770,000. I presume in 1992 there was another $200,000 increase. Is that the case? If you're puzzled, ask me to rephrase it and I'll do that. Is there a normal progression of dollars that has come in the last four or five years, with the exception of 1990?
Mr Campbell: The provincial funding has increased in a normal progression up until 1992. There was a change then, obviously, in the provincial funding formula and we lucked into some extra money there that we weren't anticipating. So 1992 is a bit of blip in the pattern.
Mr Marchese: But with the exception of 1990, there has been a regular increase of support similar to the municipal funding. When you look at 1989, $1.041 million, to 1992, $1.386 million, the progression seems to be similar there as with provincial funding.
Mr Campbell: The progression is less than the rate of inflation. It is less than the rate of increase in our assessment. It is less than the rate of increase in our population. So there are far more demands on what in reality are diminishing dollars, in true steady-state dollars.
Mr Marchese: But inflation has been very low in 1991 and 1992, and the increase seems to me to be a good figure in terms of support for the conservation authority.
The Vice-Chair: Good question and good answer. Mr Ward.
Mr Ward: Even though the funding has increased, it hasn't increased as quickly as you would like to do everything the conservation authority would like to do. Is that correct?
Mr Campbell: I think everybody in this room would agree with that.
Mr Ward: Like Gerry feels when he talks about the federal transfer payments and how they've increased, and we say they hasn't increased enough.
Your conservation authority was created in 1958, according to the background information we have. In my community of Brantford, which has the GRCA, the Grand River Conservation Authority, it was really driven by flood control of the Grand River. I think our community was one of the instigators, along with other municipalities of the Grand, to really spur the idea of a conservation authority in the early 1900s.
But in looking at the watershed, they're all creeks. I don't know the history of the other conservation authorities. Did they form and Durham was kind of left in a vacuum? You mentioned the one creek that has the potential to flood quickly. Was there was a feeling in 1958 that, "We're left out of the other authorities; we should have one," and is that what drove the initiative in 1958? Do you have any history of how the authority was created?
Mr Campbell: I can only give you some very cursory information about that. The driving force that got our authority going was the conservation of land, albeit it happened in 1958, and of course Hurricane Hazel happened in 1954. It's a misconception, and I think a popular misconception, that it was this flooding problem that got a lot of authorities going.
Mr Ward: I was just relating it to my own community.
Mr Campbell: It was the conservation of land. I think a prime example is our neighbour to the east, with the Ganaraska forest and the Ganaraska River system. That forest used to be all blow sand, and that authority got going to preserve the land and establish that forest there. That's what happened with us and that's what happened in quite a number of authorities.
Mr Ward: In 1982, I'm assuming there were programs that were operated by your conservation authority to meet the needs of the times. What programs were you doing in 1982 that you're no longer doing, and can you give some examples of what you're doing now that perhaps you weren't doing in 1982?
Mr Campbell: The only example that immediately comes to mind of things we were doing in 1982 that we are not doing now is an education program where we'd cooperate with area schools and put on programs for them. Actually, we have a position vacancy in our staff for such an individual; it's been vacant for years and we've never filled it. I think it's very regrettable that that kind of activity has evaporated, but that is the case, and that end of our activity has shut down. We do something very similar, though, in what we call community services, which is more broad-based than dealing simply with school boards.
Things we are doing now that we did not do in 1982: waterfront management, water quality control. We did quantity but not quality. Those are certainly two big activities. There's quite a number of them.
Mr Ward: One last question: The GRCA's administration building is relatively new construction in Cambridge. How old is your administration complex?
Mr Campbell: We bought it in 1984; the building was built in the 1920s.
Mr Ward: Has it outgrown its usefulness?
Mr Campbell: No. It should be a heritage building. It hasn't been designated as such. When the authority bought this property, there are about 135 acres and nearly a mile and a half of watercourse right through the heart of Oshawa that go with it. It isn't simply a building, and we paid a very small fraction of what its actual market value was.
All we had to do was put in some new carpeting and paint the walls and then one partition to form a boardroom. It was almost a turnkey operation. As I'd indicated earlier, we've had almost a negligible increase in our staff, so the building suits us very well. The boardroom is getting a little crowded now for the number of members we have, particularly when we have delegations. That's tight, but other than that, the building suits us very well right now and I think should for the foreseeable future.
Mr Ward: You mentioned it was below market, that you got a good deal on it.
Mr Campbell: It's a 10,000-square-foot building. There are 135 acres that go with it. There's an adjacent building, which is a classroom and garage and workshop area --
Mr Ward: But who owned it before?
Mr Campbell: We paid $285,000 for this property. It had a $5-million outstanding mortgage on it and it was appraised at something just under $1-million market value when we bought it. It was a leather tannery, its main office, and the firm had been bankrupt for some years.
Mr Ward: Thanks.
The Chair (Mr Robert W. Runciman): Mr Sterling, you had a quick question?
Mr Sterling: I have some concerns after hearing the discussion go around here, the fact that this conservation authority is totally controlled by municipal councillors. It seems to me that there is an opportunity for conflict of interest. The situation I could foresee, for instance, would be the transfer of responsibility from the municipality to the conservation authority for some functions which municipalities might have otherwise taken on. Has there been any transfer at all of responsibility, for instance, for the care of some park areas or whatever in the last three years?
Mr Campbell: Unlike the Metro scene, where you have local parks, for instance, city of Toronto parks, and then you have Metro parks and then you have conservation areas and then you have provincial parks, the piece that's missing in our area is a regional park system. The conservation authority really fulfils that role. You have local municipal parks which are high-activity areas; you have the conservation areas/regional parks, which for the most part are left as natural areas; and within our jurisdiction we have one provincial park.
Mr Sterling: I guess my point is that I don't know whether you are a conservation authority or a committee of council. That's the problem I see here. Three years ago, that was the major demarcation in terms of active councillors becoming the conservation authority. Is that the timing we're talking about? Was it three years ago?
Mr Campbell: Durham region was formed in 1973. In 1976, it would accept only councillors. You had to be either a local councillor or a regional councillor.
Mr Sterling: So it goes way back?
Mr Campbell: That one change occurred then. You had to hold political office, back in 1976, to be appointed a member of the authority. In 1991, I believe, for the 1992 board, council changed the rules again and said you had to be a regional councillor. Even local councillors no longer qualified.
Mr Sterling: When somebody wants to build in the floodplain and has to come in front of the conservation authority and ask for a permit, how does your record compare with other conservation authorities in terms of refusals, in terms of appeals and whether or not appeals are being allowed?
The Chair: That's the last question.
Mr Campbell: I wouldn't have comparative figures with other authorities. Of the applications that come before us, a great deal of background work is done with an applicant to try and make his application work. If his initial concept doesn't, we believe it's part of our service to make it fit. As a consequence, probably 99% of the applications that come before us enjoy a positive recommendation from staff and generally are approved by the board. Appeals? I don't think we'd even average one a year. They are very infrequent. My recollection of any appeals that have gone to the mining and lands commissioner is that we have never lost a case.
Mr Sterling: Perhaps you could provide the committee with the record over the last five years. I would appreciate it on all of those questions.
Mr Campbell: Yes, sir.
The Chair: Thank you very much, gentlemen. We appreciate your appearance here today and wish you well.
Mr Campbell: Thank you very much, Mr Chairman.
The Chair: That does it for the committee today. I remind you that our next meeting is on February 1, with a starting time of 2 pm, and we'll be dealing with the Metropolitan Toronto Police Services Board. Meeting adjourned.
The committee adjourned at 1234.