Ontario
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Welcome to the Ontario Branch site!
The Ontario Branch of CWRA began operating informally in the early 1970s, conducting conferences and workshops and in 1991 the Ontario Branch was officially incorporated.
Operations of the Branch are managed by a board composed of not less than ten directors, who are elected at the annual meeting by the members. All provincial directors are CWRA members. Each director is elected to hold office for a period of one year. The directors are responsible for the election/appointment of officers and committees.
If you’re interested in getting involved in Branch activities, we’d love to hear from you! You can get in touch with the Ontario Branch by emailing on@cwra.org.
Ontario Branch Special General Meeting: October 4, 2024
We are required to hold a Special General Meeting to pass our updated Ontario Branch By-laws. The Meeting will be held from 2:00 – 3:00 pm EST on Friday, October 4, 2024. This is an online meeting only (Zoom). All Ontario CWRA Members are encouraged to attend and to read the proposed By-law changes and comment prior to the Special General Meeting. A minimum number of members (quorum) is required to pass the by-law updates. As a CWRA Member in Ontario, you may comment on the by-law changes even if you are not able to attend the Special Meeting.
By-law Amendments Summary:
The CWRA Ontario Branch by-laws were last updated in 2016. The Province of Ontario legislation for Ontario Not-For-Profit Corporations will come into effect for existing corporations on October 19, 2024. In addition, the national by-laws for CWRA were updated in June, 2024. The by-laws are rules that help govern ON Branch (the corporation) internal business and do not need to be filed with the government, however the Standard Organizational by-law developed by the province will supercede ON Branch by-laws for items contained in ONCA so it is important that we update our Branch by-laws by October 19th. More information on the Ontario Not-for-Profit Corporations Act may be found here
The CWRA ON Branch Board of Directors created a committee to develop a set of proposed by-law amendments to address ONCA, national by-law updates and other housekeeping updates. This work included a review and input from a representative of the National Board of Directors Governance Committee.
Below is a summary of the proposed changes. These additions/deletions are shown as ‘track changes’ in the draft By-law. The ON Branch Board of Directors is presenting these to the membership at a Special General Meeting for review and, hopefully, approval.
Key amendments to the ON Branch By-law:
- National By-law conformity in terminology i.e. Branches are referred to and governed in new/modified clauses as Subsidiary Organizations.
- Mission is not required in By-laws and has been removed.
- Numbering, and other minor spelling, grammar errors and housekeeping items (i.e., replacing “his or her” with “their”).
- By-law best practice is to include new sections i.e., Definitions and Interpretation
Additional detail on requirements and best practices for Ontario Not-for-profit corporations i.e. Ontario Branch include but are not limited to:
- additional text on governance of the Board including elections, meetings etc.
- updated process and text for reviewing financial records e.g. Audit and/or financial review engagement
- including modernized meeting and voting procedures e.g. electronic, updates on some percentages in the by-law to conform to ONCA
- additional text on the rights of members e.g. calling a meeting
- notice of annual and special general meetings, directors meetings, the content and the manner in which members or directors can attend meetings
- new sections that set out a due diligence and good faith reliance defence for directors i.e., a director will not be legally liable in certain circumstances if they acted with the care, diligence and skill a reasonably careful person would have acted in similar circumstances
- added a conflict of interest section
- additional clarity on responsibilities of Executive positions of the Board (Officers)
For Action – Your comments:
Please review the proposed By-law amendments and related comments to see the rationale for the amendments. If you have comments, please download the pdf, enter your comments, and email the document to the CWRA Ontario Branch at ON@cwra.org.
The deadline for submitting comments is 5 pm EST, September 27th, 2024
The by-law review committee will bring a synthesis/summary of the comments to the Ontario Branch Special General Meeting on October 4th.
Ontario Branch Board of Directors, 2024-2025
Branch Executive
President: Robert Chlumsky
Vice President: Gillian Walker
Secretary: Aryn Cain
Treasurer: Hida Manns
Past-President: Isabelle Hemmings
CWRA National Board Representatives
- Robert Chlumsky
- Gillian Walker
- Nancy Davy
- Stephen Braun
Branch Directors
- Robert Chlumsky
- Gillian Walker
- Hanna Daniels
- Hida Manns
- Isabelle Hemmings
- Jeffrey Hirvonen
- Kate Sapozhnikova
- Cristy Guo
- Nancy Davy
- Stephen Braun
- Steve Brown
- Pippy Warburton
- Cody Kupferschmidt
- Aryn Cain
- Scott Robertson
- Ashley Dennis
- Aakash Bagchi
- Kwun Yuen Pang
- Mason Marchildon
Ontario Events
For a full listing of CWRA events across Canada, please visit our events page.
Branch Library
The Ontario Branch of CWRA offers a variety of opportunities for people to become engaged and involved in water resource management in Ontario. If you are curious about CWRA, subscribe to our newsletter to hear about upcoming events that will give you a chance to meet other CWRA members and water professionals. You can see past mailings here.
Membership to the CWRA is not required to join our branch mailing list, but to receive the full benefit of CWRA offerings – including event discounts – we encourage everyone to join up.
If you want to get more involved, you can ask about volunteering at future events, including workshops, networking, SYP, mentoring, and virtual events. For more information please contact one of the Executive Committee members at on@cwra.org.
Subscription Form for the CWRA Ontario Branch Newsletter:
