Parties offer dubious reviews of each other

The Yukon’s three parties all claimed the political and moral high ground following the end of the fall sitting Thursday afternoon.

The Yukon’s three parties all claimed the political and moral high ground following the end of the fall sitting Thursday afternoon.

The official Opposition Liberals took credit for holding Premier Dennis Fentie and the ruling Yukon Party to account on the botched $36.3-million commercial paper investment, alleged attempts to sell off the Yukon Energy Corp. and meddling in
the Peel watershed planning process.

Colleagues in opposition, the New Democrats, touted establishing a host of committees to examine ATV regulations, credit unions and changes to the Landlord and Tenant Act.

Fentie said his ruling Yukon Party is following through on promises made prior to being re-elected to lead the territory in 2006, and heaped scorn on the Liberals while praising the NDP.

“For the most part, the statements made by the official Opposition in this sitting had a distinct and pungent odor of mendacity,” Fentie said.

He added he believes the government “and the third party made a genuine effort to make the assembly work.”

But Liberal Leader Arthur Mitchell defended the pressure his party put on Fentie’s government, which for all intents and purposes culminated in a failed non-confidence motion that challenged the Yukon Party’s credibility to govern.

“Do you expect Dennis to say that the opposition member’s right?” asked Mitchell after learning Fentie’s appraisal of the Liberals’ performance.

“The more they try and deflect questions, the worse they appear. The facts are four long-serving (energy corporation board) members resigned over this ... and his own Energy minister resigned and publicly called the premier a liar,” said Mitchell, rehashing events that scandalized Fentie and the Yukon Party.

Last June, four directors from the Yukon Energy Corp. board resigned to protest what they contend were Fentie’s designs first to sell, then privatize the public utility in a merger with ATCO’s Yukon Electrical Co. Ltd.

Then, in late August, Energy, Mines and Resources minister Brad Cathers resigned, explaining he could no longer serve under a premier who misled his own caucus and the Yukon public.

For a brief time, Cathers move reduced the Yukon Party to minority government status. However, former Yukon Party member John Edzerza’s flip-flop back to the Fentie fold handed the premier back his majority and reduced Mitchell’s Nov. 25 non-confidence motion to a moot point.

But as Mitchell has stated many times inside and outside the legislature, he repeated Thursday that Fentie was selling out the territory’s future behind the backs of Yukoners and meddling in the Peel land use planning process.

“The premier was caught misleading Yukoners about his secret plans for privatization and tried to deny interfering in the Peel plan despite clear evidence to the contrary,” Mitchell charged. “Yukoners don’t appreciate being lied to, and are ready for a government they can trust.”

Through 28 days of debate in the legislative assembly, Liberal MLAs were consistent in reminding Fentie of his angry telephone call last March to a Department of Environment official, documented in an internal e-mail between high-level bureaucrats, over the deparment’s submission to the Peel commission.

In the aftermath, Environment’s original 22-page submission was reduced to just four pages, and the premier was roundly criticized by conservationists and the opposition parties.

With a bird’s eye view of the fall sitting’s proceedings, NDP Leader Liz Hansen, forced to watch from the gallery as she is without a seat in the assembly, offered a poor review of question period drama.

“As theatre, I would say it was inconsistent, and some of the players were not up to their roles and perhaps didn’t deal with some of the matters with real convictions,” said Hansen, adding that Fentie was the best of the worst.

“I would suggest the premier’s inability to formulate a response beyond the superficial ... and this tendency towards veering away from the subject matter got more pronounced as the sitting wore on.”

For its part, the NDP won a pledge from government to hold a summit to examine better strategies for dealing with poverty and a select committee to tour the territory consulting Yukoners on potential ATV regulations.

However, NDP member Todd Hardy’s proposed legislative renewal bill failed to move beyond first reading and remains on the order paper.