Reducing Lake Simcoe’s phosphorous pollution cannot be a piecemeal effort. For example, what would be the point of a septic inspection program if every municipality on the surrounding waterways did not have to participate? Having the province’s funding and help would demonstrate the gravitas of this crisis, as well as create a broader feeling of “we are all in this together.”

There is a perception when a municipality implements new measures (again using the septic inspection program as an example) that this is only being done as a tax dollar cash grab. However, when the Government of Ontario mandates this sort of thing, then people view it as an issue of environmental and public health. The optics of having the province on board can get citizens to buy into recognizing that there is a problem, rather than being left to assume that pollution is an alarmist and exaggerated battle cry of hippies and treehuggers.

Furthermore, the Government of Ontario generally takes requests from municipalities much more seriously than those from concerned citizens groups. In addition, if the province were accountable for the implementation of this plan, then it would stand to reason that there would be more provincial oversight, ownership, and responsibility in this pro-development era.

Compared to municipalities, the province would simply have greater power to implement the type of large-scale changes required, i,e. legislation banning harmful chemicals and activities, enforcement for violating legislation, as well as providing consistent best-practice solutions.

The way it is right now, individual people or municipalities view themselves as the proverbial “drop in the ocean” in terms of feeling powerless to reduce this pollution. Ontario needs to step in, because there really isn’t time for us to continue the way things have been going. If the province feels that this plan is counterproductive to pushing the economy forward, this is a problem that will be so much more expensive to fix than it will be to prevent.