The Kamloops-area MLA’s have been attending several video conferences over the past few weeks to take the pulse of B.C. businesses hoping to reopen with the easing of COVID-19 restrictions, and there seems to be a running theme.

Speaking on the NL Morning News, Kamloops-North Thompson Liberal Peter Milobar said he has heard from several different industries and the topics that keep coming up are frustration over red tape, wait times to get things approved and overall inaction from the province.

“Very little has been done by the province to bring forward any meaningful help to the commercial sector in terms business supports, PPE supports, rent support for commercial operations,” Milobar said.

“None of that is really happening provincially.”

He says it’s not just the red tape causing frustration, it is also questions around taxation.

“Deferring taxes is one thing but that’s still a bill that needs to get paid and so there’s a big worry within the business community around the overall tax burden that they’re seeing provincially and what they may have been able to suck up and eat in a normal economy right now when they look at their same tax bill they’re very concerned about how they’re going to be able to keep their doors open,” Milobar added.

Milobar says he and Kamloops South Thompson Liberal Todd Stone have sat in on at least a dozen conferences with more on the way in the next couple of weeks including one with the Kamloops Chamber of Commerce this Thursday.