An announcement earlier this month by the Federal and Provincial governments to make 700,00 hectares of land in northern BC protected habitat for the endangered mountain caribou is not sitting well with the local MLA.
The NDP and the Federal government negotiated the 30 year deal with the West Moberly and Saulteau First Nations, but anyone else from the area was shut out of talks.
While he doesn’t agree with the outcome, Peace River South Liberal MLA, Mike Bernier, said on the NL Morning News, it was the way the NDP went about getting to that decision that has him angry. “Right from the get-go it was done completely backwards.”
“Once it got out that decisions were being made without public input, town hall meetings started happening all over the province. Thousands of people showing up and saying ‘look, all we want to do is be at the table. We want to save caribou. We work in the area, we want to be part of the solution’.”
He didn’t hold anything back when it came to John Horgan. “The Premier had to fly up with zero notice, fly up to my riding and actually apologize for the actions, basically of his Minister, Doug Donaldson and said ‘We will do better’ and nothing changed.”
“He promised that people would be consulted before decisions were made, then they made the decision and said ‘Sorry we’ll consult with you afterwards’. Again it was a complete slap in the face to rural BC on how they’re being treated by this government.”
Bernier was asked if this has taken any toll on his relationship with Indigenous people in his area. “It’s a tough situation right now and I’ll say I used to have a really good relationship with the First Nations in my area and I hope to get back there. Lately, honestly it’s been strained over this whole mountain caribou issue.”
“When we have the provincial government that was negotiating behind closed doors with just the First Nations, it really put me in a spot where I had to be very vocal and speak out about the fact that this is going to impact and affect tens of thousands of people in my area and it’s completely inappropriate for the government to negotiate with just First Nations and leaving everyone else in the dark and then to make an announcement like they did last week, after promising not to do that is another slap in the face.”
Bernier said this has been one of the biggest frustrations he’s faced in the 15 years he’s been an elected official.
