Municipalities alone select NPCA board: MNR
Email to Welland NDP MPP Jeff Burch says 1994 directive has long been invalid
Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry has rejected a push by the out-going Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority board of directors to be part of the process that selects its replacements.
In an email to Welland NDP MP Jeff Burch, ministry spokesperson said a 1994 order in council — a directive from the provincial legislature — that outgoing NPCA chair Sandy Annunziata says is “the law” and would see him preside over board member selection meetings, is no longer valid.
The email said the 24-year-old directive — it wasn’t even used the year it was issued — was revoked because the legislation it was connected to, the Conservation Authorities Act, has been amended several times since 1994.
The power to select the next NPCA board of directors rests entirely with local municipalities and Niagara’s regional council, the email says, and doesn’t involve the outgoing board or chair.
The missive from the ministry may bring to a close a question hanging over the appointment of the next NPCA board since Nov. 23, when Annunizata sent a letter to regional council and area municipalities saying the agency had discovered the 1994 directive and NPCA’s lawyer said it has to be followed to select the next board.
The process would have involved three groups of Niagara municipalities voting for board members at selection meetings presided over by Annunziata.
Local mayors and incoming members of regional council were unhappy with the suggestion because most Niagara NPCA board members, including Annunziata, were defeated during the October election. Annunizata’s letter prompted Welland Mayor Frank Campion to resign from the NPCA board and ask all other Niagara members to follow suit. So far, no one has follow his lead.
The 1994 order in council was created as a gerrymandering effort to ensure Niagara would
have a controlling number of directors on the board, which also has members from Hamilton and Haldimand. But the board members have always been selected by regional council, either by appointing a member of council, or approving a selection made by an area municipal council.
Several local councils, including St. Catharines and Welland city councils, are in the process of selecting a citizen appointee to sit on the board. Fort Erie has chosen its representative.
A motion passed by regional council in 2014 that appointed the current board of directors said the term of Niagara members ends when council’s does. That term officially concluded Friday.
The ministry email to Burch is the third opinion that contradicts the one offered by Annunizata and NPCA’s lawyer Paul DeMelo.
Last week, Brock University political science professor David Siegel said orders in council are usually rendered moot when the legislative act they are connected to is amended. The Conservation Authorities Act was last amended in 2017.
Burch also reached out to the Queen’s Park legislative library for information. A researcher there said the 1994 order in council was no longer valid because it references municipalities that have since been dissolved through amalgamation.
In an email to The Standard Sunday, NPCA spokesperson Krystle Caputo said the board’s lawyer conferred with “Conservation Ontario, Archives of Ontario and our three funding municipalities” and found no documents saying the 1994 order in council had been revoked.
She was checking to see if the lawyer checked with the minister of Natural Resources and Forestry or the legislative library, but did not an answer Sunday.
“It’s time for defeated Fort Erie Coun. Sandy Annunziata and the rest of the board to step down and allow the individual municipalities to make their appointments to the NPCA board as set out in the Conservation Authorities Act,” said Burch in a statement.
“I hope this outgoing board apologizes to the people of Niagara for once again dragging a previously respected conservation authority through the mud with this desperate last grab at power.”