The Liberal MLA for Peace River South likes most of what he heard from the Premier about making changes to address an uproar over consultations to save endangered caribou.

Mike Bernier says the move to extend those consultations and bring Dawson Creek Councillor and former MLA Blair Lekstrom in as a local liaison will help lower the temperature.

“I am going to try and be optimistic and say with all of this that maybe we are going to see something positive in the end. We all want to protect caribou in the end without slowing down or hurting the economy in the region.”

But Bernier says questions remain especially to determine if consultations will truly be meaningful and that the province is listening.

“Well obviously one of the main things for us going forward now is to ensure that, that feedback is actually going to be listened too. It has been one of our concerns all along is that people were not part of consultations and that people were not involved. Obviously the Premier and government were feeling that pressure. To bring Blair on and announce the four week extension I believe highlights the pressure that they were feeling.”

Was there anything missing from the announced changes?

“It is fine to say give an extra month but there was no commitment at all in the announcement about what that was going to look like about more consultative meetings. There was no security in any of the announcements to protect jobs. It was all about lowering the temperature.”

Bernier says while Blair Lekstrom is well like and respected locally he is now under a lot of pressure that serving as a conduit to the Premier’s office will bring about change.