Doug Ford Is Transforming Rural Ontario, Under Our Noses

When Doug Ford was first elected, he had plans to amalgamate all of Ontario's health units into ten centrally controlled organisations, all Conservation Authorities (CAs) into ten centrally controlled organisations, and to phase out school boards in favour of a centrally controlled education system.

The reasoning seemed to be two fold. Save costs, and gain control.

The common factor between these disparate organisations is that although they fall under provincial mandates and legislation, they are governed by boards made up mostly of municipal appointees and address specific local concerns.

Amid scandals related to his undisciplined cronies turned government officials, and his own lack of experience, the Ford government faltered badly in its first 18 months.

Near the end of the second year of Ford's premiereship, that all began to change, and one of the smart things his government did was to retreat from the CA and Public Health amalgamation goals, which were unnecessary irritants between the province and local municipalities, many of which were natural allies for a Conservative government. They backed down with the school boards as well, but not to the same extent.

Years later, armed with a fresh mandate, the Ford government is returning to it initial goals.

One of the first things the Doug Ford 3.0 government did after last year's election, was to announce sweeping changes to Conservation Authorities. Thirty-four CAs, handling a broad range of issues of concern, in 34 different watersheds, were to become 7 tightly controlled bureaucratic entities. That number has since been modified to 9.

There are serious concerns about this among our local municipalities, who have historically and recently taken active roles in governance of the existing Conservation Authorities, and have developed strong ties to them as well, in areas as diverse as water level controls to mitigate against flooding and drought, lake conservation, and help in assessing the impact of planning applications on the health of watersheds.

The Province is claiming that the new, larger CAs will benefit from economies of scale and streamlined processes, but existing Staff at the CAs and local municipalities are concerned that things will only get worse, and there may be unexpected financial and/or environmental costs stemming from the changes.

And for municipalities like North Frontenac, which has a large and expensive network of dams that are financed and managed by the Mississippi Valley Conservation Authority, there is very real concern that those assets, and replacement and maintenance costs, could be downloaded to them, which they are in no position to finance.

A look at the results of a voluntary amalgamation in the Public Health sector, may be instructive in this regard.

When the South East Ontario Public Health was formed in January, 2025, it was a voluntary change, encouraged by some special funding from the province. It was, at least in part, a proactive move to avoid a possible forced amalgamation in the future, perhaps into an even larger grouping that could’ve cost even more local oversight. The amalgamation was accepted without complaint by the local municipalities involved: Lanark, Leeds and Grenville, Frontenac, Lennox and Addington, Hastings and Prince Edward Counties and the City of Kingston. Where there were three independent bodies, there is now one, the South East Public Health Unit (SEPH).

It would be an understatement to say there have been some growing pains for the SEPH in its first 15 months.

The moist direct example was an attempt by senior staff at SEPH to close satellite offices, including the Cloyne office in our readership area. This staff plan was overturned by the municipally appointed Board of Directors. This kind of public slap-down of a decision made by the leadership team, was unheard of in the former Kingston Frontenac Lennox and Addington Public Health (KFLAPH) days when the board would have been consulted well before the measures were taken.

Just in the past ten years, KFLAPH took on both Lyme Disease and Radon mitigation, issues of particular concern within its own boundaries that were not as well understood elsewhere in the province at the time, but are serious public health concerns in Frontenac County. And the quick decision making in 2020 in the very early days of the COVID pandemic, along with some luck to be sure, resulted in no deaths in long term care in our region in the spring of 2020, when death rates in the double digits were common in long term care facilities elsewhere in the province.

SEPH may get its footing over time, although the closing of satellite offices is still on the table, and the rural strategy that is supposed to replace those physical services has not been well articulated to this point. Even in the best-case scenario, it will be hard for SEPH to regain the public trust that KFLAPH had earned over time.

The four conservation authorities that are responsible for territory in Frontenac County have diverse financial resources and roles, based on the needs within the watershed systems they were created to manage. But they have worked very hard, in the face of the pending threat of forced amalgamation from the Ford government, to make sure they provide accurate and quick service to municipalities, on planning matters.

That role was gutted by the Province last year, forcing municipalities to scramble in order to get timely information, in order to make decisions about planning approvals. The irony in that case was that the Province thinks that CAs are a drag on development, that they delay projects by ordering unnecessary studies, and block development by being over zealous in protecting the environment, beyond what is reasonable.

Local municipalities say this has not been the case, at least in recent years. For the public, there is a measure of comfort that an organisation that understands the local environment is consulted before large building projects take place. CAs have joined with local planning authorities to find a way to alter projects that are proposed by developers, in order to mitigate against environmental impacts, while still allowing things to get built.

The government of Ontario has claimed, but not proven, that the CA system is broken. Local experience suggests otherwise.

It is unclear what we will gain with the creation of new, larger CAs, but it is clear what we lose, municipal partners in the protection of watersheds and responsible development in the public interest.