Five-person ‘focus group’ picked by MLA to review input on national park future
Osoyoos Times
Photo: MLA Linda Larson
A five-person “focus group” chosen by MLA Linda Larson is getting ready to review hundreds of public submissions that could lead to the opening of a national park in the South Okanagan.
The panel will distill the comments received by the provincial government in response to its Intentions Paper: Protected Areas Framework for British Columbia’s South Okanagan. The deadline for submissions was the end of October.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Environment said the government received more than 400 responses to a web-based questionnaire.
The government also received between 800 and 900 postcards from the Wilderness Committee, a non-profit organization that supports a national park, as well as several hundred letters and emails, said spokesperson David Karn.
Larson said the five-person group was chosen to be representative of the different interests affected.
“There is somebody that has business connections, there are some that have environmental connections and some that have farming connections,” she said. “They are equally represented.”
She would not disclose the names of focus group members.
“That is not public,” she said. “I have no intention of having these people harassed.”
She emphasizes, however, that their role will be to go through the submissions and summarize them.
Asked about the perception of some that the process could be skewed by a panel picked by Larson, a staunch opponent of a national park, Larson insisted this is not the case.
“No, no, no, no, no,” she said. “These particular individuals have been vetted by the ministry. They are upstanding citizens and they will not be attaching their names to this. They are strictly summarizing the input. They are not making recommendations.”
Larson is pleased by the number of responses received, although she hasn’t read them.
The goal was to get input and ideas from people on everything from conservation to tourism.
Ministry staff will go through the summaries provided by the focus group, looking for common threads, she said.
Larson said she expects the focus group to present the summaries to ministry staff in early January.
Karn, the ministry spokesperson, said the Ministry of Environment expects to post a consultation report in early 2016.
“The results of the consultation will inform recommendations on what, if any, new land protection measures should be undertaken in the South Okanagan,” he said.
