B.C.’s Forests Minister says the 17th annual B.C. Natural Resources Forum that was held in Prince George this week was a success.

Speaking on the NL Morning News, Doug Donaldson says there were as many as 1,100 people in attendance, which he says is likely a record.

“Industry, First Nations, local government, businesses, labour, and these conferences, especially this one behind held in the north is just a great venue to reacquaint and run into people in the hallways,” he said. “It’s small enough that you can do that and have side meetings and that’s where a lot of important conversations happen.”

Among the key topics of discussion at the forum was the ongoing forestry crisis and the optimism over LNG developments moving forward.

Meanwhile, the opposition Liberal Environment Critic says there’s no doubt that the forum was well attended. However, Peter Milobar says there were some concerns raised over how government is handling some of the issues.

Milobar says government needs to pay closer attention to the issues.

“And a lot of that I guess is more nuanced,” he said on the NL Morning News. “You know when you’re sitting at they keynote lunch with the Premier and there’s around 600 people in the room and essentially all his clap lines are ignored and the couple of times there was applause, it was basically a golf clap.”

“That to me speaks to the underlying unrest that the industry is feeling.”

Milobar says it is especially in the northern and Interior B.C. communities affected by the forestry crisis where most of the unrest is