Monday is the last day to submit comments on the latest round of consultations regarding the Peel River watershed.

As the deadline approaches, opinions were on full display at the latest Lake Laberge constituency meeting.

Wednesday night's event, hosted by Brad Cathers, the riding's MLA and minister of Energy, Mines and Resources, "went from talking about road repairs and subdivisions to an open, out-of-order debate on the Peel River,” according to one constituent who attended.

Alan Young told the Star Thursday the meeting dealt with standard topics until its later stages.

That's when a woman in the front row "out of nowhere” asked Cathers, "What's going on with the Peel?”

Young said he didn't recognize the questioner.

"People were talking out of order and arguing back and forth amongst themselves within the crowd, and Brad was trying to answer questions from all angles,” he said.

Young said it was Cathers who cut the debate short.

"Towards the end. he said, ‘this is over.' He got up, basically walked out and started his truck and left,” Young said.

"He definitely cut it short; it already wasn't short; it was already going on for 45 minutes with arguing and debating and questioning back and forth and he was getting frustrated because he was on his own there.”

If the minister hadn't ended things, Young insists, the debate "would have gone on.”

About 40 people attended the gathering at the local firehall. It began at 7 p.m. and ended when Cathers left at around 10:30, Young said, adding that the majority were in favour of protecting the Peel.

The minister was unavailable for comment Thursday and today, which is a holiday for government employees and ministers.

A spokesperson with the government denies Cathers cut the meeting short.

"My understanding is that the minister left when the meeting was over,” spokesperson Matthew Grant said Thursday.

"There were a number of people there and a few people who were quite vocal on their views on the Peel. There was people who had views on all sides on the issue,” Grant said.

"The minister heard their views and he encouraged them, as he's encouraged others, to submit their comments on the peel to the consultation process.”

Monday is the deadline to submit comments to the government's Peel Watershed Land Use Plan consultations.

A draft plan put together by a planning commission,was first released in December 2009. It called for 80 per cent of the land to be completely protected from development.

Last February, the government announced it would be conducting this latest round of consultations on the proposed plan.

"They hired the commission seven years ago to deal with the Peel River watershed plan,” Young said, "and now, in the bottom of the ninth inning, he decides he doesn't like the way the game's going, so he's cancelling it and changing the whole thing.”

Young said he doesn't feel bad for Cathers or the way the meeting went.

"He works for me; he's supposed to be doing what I want. I'm a taxpayer, I vote, I live in the constituency. I have all the right to question him on anything.”

An opponent of development in the Peel, Young said he was planning to talk to Cathers after the meeting and present him with a letter

"The Peel has to be protected, and there can't be any roaded access,” Young said.

"It depletes wildlife and disrupts the ecosystem. There's all kinds of wildlife issues if you have access into those areas that have been remote for all those years.”

Young, who runs Midnight Sun Outfitting, made a comparison to the original miners who arrived in the Yukon.

"Miners come and go disappointed. I used the example of hiking over the Chilkoot Trail with all your stuff on your back.

"Miners still come in today, only now they come in in jets. They're still leaving disappointed.

"You as a person or me as a person ... go to the Peel and they go hunting or fishing, leave satisfied and their dream, they leave fulfilled.”

See commentary and several letters on the Peel's future in today's opinion section.