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The Yukon government says it will put the brakes on a number of programs and and initiatives started by the last territorial government, including a rent cap, and a recycling program.
The Yukon Party is also vowing to restructure the education department, review the territory’s immigration policies, and tackle crime by investing more in the justice system.
Those were among the priorities laid out by Premier Currie Dixon in a speech from the throne delivered in the legislature on Monday. It was the first sitting day at the legislature since Dixon’s Yukon Party ousted the Liberals in last month’s election.
The speech, read in the legislature by Commissioner Adeline Webber, took some shots at the previous government, for “wrongheaded policy and bad decisions” that it says has made life expensive and homeownership out of reach for many Yukoners.
“In a territory as land rich as Yukon, this is as tragic as it is unacceptable,” Webber read.
The speech reiterated a number of campaign promises from the Yukon Party including:
Phasing out the residential rent cap. Streamlining land development, in part by reforming the land lottery system.”Insulate” Yukoners from proposed power rate hikes by Yukon Energy.Prioritize recruitment of health care professionals, including from the U.S., U.K., Australia and New Zealand.Reassess the health authority.Restructure the Department of Education.Ban cellphones from classrooms.Do a “comprehensive review” of the Whitehorse Emergency Shelter, including potential alternative locations.Invest in the justice system to “reduce reoffending and to support victims of crime.”Launch a review of the territory’s immigration policies.
The government has also promised to “pause and reassess” the extended producer responsibility (EPR) program for recycling, saying the program is “imposing increased costs and red tape on small business.”
The EPR program came into effect at the beginning of 2024 and is intended to shift the cost of recycling materials from governments and taxpayers to the producers of those materials. That means the cost of recycling is taken on by brand distributors and franchises, and also some local Yukon businesses.Â
Yukon Premier Currie Dixon, in front row centre, stands among other Yukon Party MLAs in the legislature on Monday. (Chloé Dioré de Périgny/Radio-Canada)
The speech also reiterated the Yukon Party’s focus on crime, and said the new government “will take decisive action to tackle the current crime wave.”
“It was not too long ago that the territory boasted some of the safest communities in Canada. Now Whitehorse has a violent crime rate surpassing many big cities across North America — a shocking development for those who grew up here,” Webber read.
Along with a review of the emergency shelter, the government says it will work with RCMP to strengthen enforcement, and to “better address repeat and violent offenders and their supervision in our communities.” It also says it will push for bail reform in Canada.
The government also says it will “support the rights of legal gun owners in this territory,” and that Yukon will not participate in the federal government’s firearms buyback program.
‘I was trying to be hopeful,’ says Opposition leader
Speaking to reporters after the speech on Monday, Official Opposition Leader Kate White said she was concerned by what she’d heard, but she was “still trying to process it.”
“To be perfectly frank, there’s so many concerns that it’s going to be really hard to go through it,” she said.
She also recalled being an MLA during the last Yukon Party government a decade ago.
“I was trying to be hopeful that maybe it wouldn’t be a repetition. And it might actually be worse,” she said.
Official Opposition Leader Kate White said the throne speech has her worried that the new government ‘might actually be worse’ than the last time Yukon Party government, a decade ago. (Chloé Dioré de Périgny/Radio-Canada)
White criticized the promise to phase out the rent cap, which her party had helped bring in through its confidence and supply agreement with the minority Liberal government.
“What does that mean to the thousands of Yukoners who rent right now? When there is nowhere else to go? Because we do not have that kind of market, we don’t have that kind of availability,” she said.
White also indicated that her party would not vote to support the new government’s first budget bill which will be tabled on Tuesday.
Also in the legislature on Monday, Yvonne Clarke was elected the new Speaker. The Yukon Party MLA is currently serving a second term in the legislature, now representing the new riding of Whistle Bend South. Dixon has earlier said he would nominate Clarke for the role, and that she would be the first Filipino Speaker in any Canadian legislature.
Longtime Yukon Party MLA Patti McLeod of Watson Lake has been named deputy Speaker. That’s a role she also held under a previous Yukon Party government.