Conservation leaders?

At least one of two Hamilton councillors won’t be leading a local conservation authority board after the annual CA election cycle in February. New provincially-imposed term limits are forcing Brenda Johnson to step down as head of the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority.

The Ford government has exempted Hamilton CA from those rules so its chair, Lloyd Ferguson, could obtain a fourth consecutive term. However Ferguson has come out on the losing end of some key HCA decisions in the last year, making his position increasingly tenuous.

That reached a peak at the board’s November meeting with the rejection of a policy that would have allowed developers to destroy wetlands and other natural features in return for compensation. Ferguson had pushed for the offsetting policy and his comments contrasted sharply with the rest of the HCA board who all endorsed the staff recommendation.

Ferguson spoke last and made clear his disagreement with both staff and other board members. He said he was “disappointed” in the staff report because it didn’t allow for maximum development, and went on to warn that current wetland protection policies will hurt Hamilton’s economy.

“What I like about the offsetting policies is I like the jobs [and] number two I like the tax revenue,” the chair declared. “I was hoping to get staff onside for this and they decided not to, so it’s going to be difficult”.

Ferguson repeatedly referenced the warehousing proposal that would have destroyed a wetland in the headwaters of Ancaster Creek which he supported. “Wetlands as we saw at 140 Garner Road don’t run nice and neatly down property lines. They go across as in the case of 140 Garner on an angle and make a lot of the property undevelopable, so ... by following the wetland contours it will make a lot of that land undevelopable.”

Ferguson won a vote in November 2020 that directed HCA staff to draft an offsetting policy requested by owners of 140 Garner. Initially that was opposed by just two votes on the eleven member HCA board, but it’s been downhill ever since for the chair.

When staff presented a draft policy at the board’s April meeting there was a bitter clash over whether Ferguson was upholding conservation principles or thought the HCA should make jobs and development its priorities. In the same meeting it was announced that the 140 Garner owners were applying for a permit without waiting for the finalization of the offsetting policy.

That generated a storm of public opposition that by the June decision meeting included eight delegations and over 200 letters to the HCA. After an hour and a half in secret session, the board rejected the developers’ proposal to replace the existing wetland with an artificial pond.

The 6000-word draft offsetting policy subsequently drew detailed comments from 300 people, virtually all opposed to allowing wetlands and other natural features to be destroyed for compensation. And that led to the November meeting where Ferguson was left as the sole defender of an offsetting policy.

Ferguson suggested that opponents didn’t understand the benefits of offsetting and lamented that “it’s going to take a lot of educating and convincing to turn the public around.” Out of step with both his board and the public puts Ferguson’s continued role as chair of the HCA in question.