Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority Staff Answers Controversial Restructuring Changes By Unionizing For First Time In Agency’s History

By Doug Draper 

Anyone who has been closely watching the deconstruction of the once-proud Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority over the past two or three years could not be surprised by the following news.

NPCA’s Balls Falls conservation centre.

Staff at the NPCA have, for the first time in the 55-year history of the Conservation Authority, joined a union – the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) confirmed in a media release this October.

“OPSEU welcomes our newest members at the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority,” announced the union in the October 1^st release… “On September 30, the Ontario Labour Relations Board affirmed that members chose OPSEU in a vote held September 3. … OPSEU President Warren (Smokey) Thomas is proud these new members chose OPSEU as their representative. “These workers, (said Thomas) play a vital role in maintaining and preserving the natural beauty and habitats in the area, and ensuring that it isn’t lost for future generations.”NPCA staff most certainly does play a vital role in protecting and preserving the natural features in a Niagara watershed that includes upstream tributaries and wetlands in the east Hamilton and Haldimand areas. Yet over the past two years more than eight staff responsible for performing that role were let go under an administration that believed they were taking their mandate too seriously when it came to dealing developers and other landowners in the watershed.

At a meeting attended by this journalist last year at the Thorold Four Points Inn on the NPCA’s new “strategic plan,” a consultant hired by the Conservation Authority administration publicly pilloried staff members it let go as “sandpaper” and as “ideologues,” and assured developers and representatives of the agricultural community at the meeting that he “restructured” NPCA would be far more responsive to their interests.

Throughout all of this, sources close to the NPCA have told this journalist that morale among the staff has tanked, and that move toward unionizing for the first time in the Conservation Authority’s history had much more to do with protecting their job security and ability to perform their role as conservationists than it was about salaries and benefits. 

The unionization of NPCA staff comes as voters in the Niagara region face municipal elections this October 27^th.

It is important for voters to know that local municipalities and Niagara’s regional government play an instrumental role in deciding who is appointed to the NPCA’s board of directors. 

With that in mind, voters who believe that NPCA staff should be encouraged to do their job as one of the very few official voices we have in this region for protecting and preserving our green spaces should press all those running for municipal office to support this agency in fulfilling that mandate. 

There are other local and regional government offices speaking for economic development. The NPCA is about the only one this region has left for making the case for protecting our natural resources and it should not be compromised or hijacked by competing interests.

NAL will have more to say about the NPCA prior to the October 27^th vote.

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