Bylsma out as NPCA chair
Hamilton city councillor Brenda Johnson elected new boss and calls leadership change ‘a fresh start’ for the board
After a week of controversy surrounding his views about climate change, West Lincoln Mayor David Bylsma is out as chair of Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority.
After four rounds of voting during NPCA’s annual general meeting Wednesday morning, the board of directors selected Brenda Johnson as its new chair.
Diana Huson, a Niagara Region councillor for Pelham, also failed to get re-elected, as board vice-chair, and was replaced by Bruce MacKenzie, a naturalist and citizen appointee from Grimsby.
Johnson, a member of the Hamilton city council that kept a massive Cootes Paradise sewage leak secret from the public for years, immediately said it was time for the often beleaguered agency to put its troubles behind it.
“I want to take a moment to thank Dave and Diana. You have taken us through some really challenging times, and I thank you for it,” Johnson said after taking her seat as chair. “I am not interested in the past folks. We dealt with the past. I am more interested in today and what we are going to do tomorrow. Let’s get to work.”
Johnson said she hopes having someone from Hamilton as chair — a position held for years by Niagara residents — will help foster a better relationship between Niagara Region, Hamilton and Haldimand County, NPCA’s funding municipalities.
The annual vote for board chair was conducted under the shadow of Bylsma’s beliefs pertaining to climate change.
The national president of the Christian Heritage Party, which claims the climate crisis is phoney, Bylsma does not believe carbon dioxide produced by human activity is driving the process. He rejects peer-reviewed
science that says CO2 is driving climate change and says solar cycles, volcanoes and tree cutting are responsible.
After the board declared a “climate emergency” last summer, Bylsma’s views came under increasing scrutiny. Two weeks ago a pair of activists called for his removal as chair in an open letter to the board and the local media. Some board members, most notably Brad Clark from Hamilton, were critical of Bylsma’s position, saying it could hurt NPCA’s reputation.
Bylsma tried to make the case to the board that he should be re-elected, highlighting a number of serious issues resolved during his tenure, including labour disputes and implementing recommendations from the 2018 Auditor General report.
“I do not deserve that,” Bylsma said, reacting to something someone in the public gallery said at the end of his speech. “I am a good chair.”
His pitch wasn’t enough to sway his colleagues. Bylsma was eliminated from contention after the first round of ballots.
Huson, who nominated Johnson for the chair’s position, was eliminated after two rounds of voting for vice-chair.
It is not clear if Bylsma’s climate change beliefs influenced the votes of board members. The St. Catharines Standard polled the entire board last week, asking for their views on climate change and if it is important to them that the chair accept peer-reviewed science.
Only four members said it was important. The rest, including Johnson, declined to answer that question. Huson declined to answer any questions about her views on climate change and McKenzie did not reply to The Standard’s questions.
Johnson, who accepts the results of climate science, said she viewed Wednesday’s votes as “a fresh start” for the board.
In particular, she said the addition of the Chandra Sharma as the new chief administrative officer, will allow the board to move forward on key issues.
Johnson’s experience on conservation and environmental issues is not without controversy. She is a member of the city council that voted to keep a major sewage leak into the westend Hamilton watershed hidden from the public.
According to documents obtained by The Hamilton Spectator, councillors, including Johnson, knew about the leak for four and a half years but opted not to tell the public until the issue was uncovered by the newspaper. The documents showed councillors kept the environmental disaster a secret to protect the public from financial liability during a provincial investigation.
McKenzie, the new vice-chair, spent 39 years with Hamilton Conservation Authority, is a director with Hamilton Naturalists Club.