The MLA for Peace River South is not impressed with how the province is responding to the report by former Liberal cabinet minister and current Dawson Creek Councillor Blair Leksrom to help save endangered mountain caribou.

Mike Bernier says if the Horgan government was really sincere on getting it right actually listening to people in the region “they would have held simultaneous consultations and made sure that the stakeholders, industry, the families, the people of the region had a say before any decision was made.”

Bernier says instead “it was just fluff.”

He says everyone wants to help save the endangered mountain caribou but the province got it all wrong right from the start.

“It is frustrating as hell watching this all play out. It all could have been avoided. It is making the racial tensions tight in our area. It is making people frustrated. If the government had just listened a year ago.”

Bernier says bringing Lekstrom on-board to help was a good move by the Premier his announcement this week was “another slap in the face to rural British Columbia.

For the Premier to come out and say we didn’t do enough work up front so we are going to do a possibly two year moratorium on industrial activity in the region while we do more research. That has got to send chills to investors and to industry.”

Bernier says he was hoping the Lekstrom report and next steps by government would have addressed all the uncertainty in the region but he says people are already reaching out to say this just adds more confusion.