Ontario auditor general will audit the Niagara conservation authority

Ontario's auditor general will inspect Niagara's embattled conservation authority after allegations of corruption, mismanagement and shoddy environmental practices.

The Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority (NPCA) said Wednesday that Bonnie Lysyk will do a full financial audit. The announcement came hours after a parliamentary committee asked Lysyk to step in.

"There have been tons of allegations and things happening for the last three or four years," said Cindy Forster, Welland's NDP MPP. She moved the motion at the Queen's Park public accounts committee.

"The people who are paying the freight need to have confidence in the work the conservation authority is mandated to do."

The NPCA said it welcomes Lysyk's audit, and hopes other authorities get similar treatment.

"It is our hope that all the conservation authorities in the province will follow the lead of the NPCA and invite the Auditor General of Ontario into their organizations," chair Sandy Annunziata said in a statement.

"No agency or organization that is the recipient of public funds should be removed from the scrutiny of the Auditor General's office."

Community confidence in the NPCA has chipped away in recent years, Forster said.

More than half of NPCAstaff have resigned or been laid off in the past three years, shesaid.The development near Thundering Waters golf course also drewprotest.

St. Catharines resident Ed Smith has taken particular aim, releasing a 45-page document called "A Call for Accountability at the NPCA." The NPCA is suing him.

The authority's woes made it to Hamilton city council in 2015, when the NPCA hiked Hamilton's annual levy from $513,473 to $1.2 million. Hamilton still refuses to paythe new levy.

Former chair Bruce Timms and former CAO Carmen D'Angelo told Hamilton city councilthe authority had a history of "casual management practices," but that it had cleaned house.

That house cleaning involved hiring D'Angelo, who had been a Hamilton representative on the NPCA board until 2014. He took a leave of absence from the board in 2013 without telling the city because the authority hired his private consulting company to advise on its restructuring. Then it hired D'Angelo as its new CAO.

Hamilton's city council has asked the province to take over temporary control of the NPCA, and even for permissionto leave the authority altogether. It also joined numerous Niagara-area councils to demand provincial reviews and forensic audits.

Forster also tabled a bill this year saying conservation authority boards should be at least half comprised of people with natural resources experience.

Forster isn't alone in this. OPSEU held a press conference Oct. 4 scrutinizing the authority. Sam Oosterhoff, PC MPP for Niagara West-Glanbrook, and Jim Bradley, Liberal MPP for St. Catharines, also issued statements.

Oosterhoff said he wants to see more transparency.

"The NPCA needs to work with openness and a spirit of collaboration in order to restore public trust," he said in his statement.