The mayors of Brampton and Mississauga are urging the Ford government to exempt a Toronto-area conservation authority from a planned merger, claiming the changes would pose “significant and immediate risks” to three of the province’s largest cities.

Ontario confirmed this year that it would amalgamate 36 conservation authorities into just nine in an attempt to remove duplication, streamline the permitting processes and fast-track housing developments across the province.

The new structure will also see the creation of an Ontario-wide conservation authority to serve as an oversight body, which will help manage the 75 per cent drop in the number of conservation authorities.

But last week, the mayors of Brampton and Mississauga wrote to Environment Minister Todd McCarthy outlining their “strong opposition” to the plan.

In a joint letter, Patrick Brown and Carolyn Parrish called on the government to consider keeping the Credit Valley Conservation Authority as a stand-alone entity.

The authority, which was created in 1954, is set to be folded into the Western Lake Ontario Regional Conservation, along with the Halton, Hamilton and Niagara Peninsula conservation authorities. It’s move, the mayors argue, would upend the local system.

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“This legislation poses significant and immediate risks to three of Ontario’s largest and most economically critical cities. The stability, safety, and efficiency of our local watershed management system are too important to jeopardize,” the mayors wrote in their letter.

“Any move that threatens to weaken or disrupt the high‑performing services our residents and businesses rely on demands our direct and urgent intervention.”

Brown and Parrish, along with the Region of Peel, argue that the Credit Valley Conservation Authority already exceeds provincial expectations on issuing housing permits — with a response time of 14 days compared to the provincial requirement of 90 days.

Any changes, they wrote, would “slow housing approvals, reduce certainty for builders, and result in fewer shovels in the ground.”

The warnings outlined in the mayor’s letter echo the concerns from the conservation authority’s board of directors, who said municipal planners and developers already have predictable timelines in the region and that any changes could seize up the gears.

“In the context of Ontario’s housing crisis, the last thing we should do is disrupt a system that is already helping get homes built,” said Michael Palleschi, the conservation board chair.

“Transitioning to a new regional bureaucracy would almost certainly slow approvals while staff, systems, and governance structures are reorganized.”

The government is currently targeting early 2027 to complete its amalgamation work, a timeline some have suggested is likely to be pushed back.

“I would suggest that February 2027, as being proposed, is very ambitious,” Tim Lanthier, the CAO of Grey Sauble Conservation Authority, previously told Global News. “It’s our understanding from the media statements that the province has a plan. We’ve yet to see this plan, though.”

Minister McCarthy has pledged that the amalgamation won’t lead to net job losses and insists it is necessary to deal with “fragmentation,” bring efficiency to leadership and standardization to the work conservation authorities do.

“We had a problem with fragmentation and inconsistency,” the minister said. “We identified the solution to that problem. We listened after initially proposing seven, and we’ve arrived at nine.”

The mayors of Brampton and Mississauga called on the government to “reconsider or pause” the proposed legislation “until full consultation with municipalities is completed.”

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