Yukon MP Larry Bagnell says he’s too busy to be a cabinet minister. Bagnell, the long-time representative first elected in 2000, was responding Tuesday to that day’s small cabinet shuffle made by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

He said he wouldn’t have “refused the call” if Trudeau had made the offer, but indicated he is quite satisfied with the changes he saw.

In particular, Bagnell said, the Yukon would miss Navdeep Bains, the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, who announced his resignation from the cabinet, as well as his intention to leave politics. That decision prodded Trudeau into making the shuffle (see details, p. 10).

Bagnell said he thinks highly of Bains, and praised his interest in the Yukon.

Bagnell related a tale of how a group of 15 to 20 Yukoners hopped on a plane in the last year or so and headed to Ottawa to hopefully meet with some officials there to outline various concerns.

Bagnell was with them, and he emailed Bains from the plane to see what he could do to facilitate their interests. The group had not scheduled any meetings ahead of time, he said.

“You know it could take weeks or months to hear back from a written request to a government minister,” Bagnell said.

Nevertheless, he was successful in contacting Bains, who agreed to a meeting at 8:00 the next morning, much to Bagnell’s surprise.

He was also to quick to praise Bains for helping to resolve a potential loss of service to Yukon customers of Xplornet last fall.

Remote customers were faced with the prospects of losing access to the network, but Bains helped to find a workaround to preserve the access for the hundreds of customers – many living in remote areas – who rely on it.

Bagnell said his departure is a “big loss to the Yukon.”

He said Bains was of considerable help as well during the pandemic when it came to helping repatriate Canadian citizens who were abroad when the travel restrictions were in effect.

As for Bagnell, he said his constituency work keeps him more than busy.

“I have my hands full being an MP,” he said with a chuckle. “Yukoners are very good at contacting their political representatives with their concerns.”

Bagnell said that during the pandemic, he was getting out of bed at 1:30 a.m. to begin handling his duties for the day. It’s only in recent weeks that he has stopped doing that, and started getting more sleep.

Recently, he said he took no work home with him, and the novelty of that simple fact was quite appealing.

“I had time to do laundry and other stuff around home,” he said with a laugh.

He has not publicly indicated whether he will contest the next election, which could come as soon as the spring.