Photo by Vince Fedoroff
CREATING RESILIENCE – Economic Development Minister Ranj Pillai, Mary Tiesen, the Yukon government’s American sign language interpreter, and Tourism and Culture Minister Jeanie McLean, left to right, are seen at the press conference they held on programs consolidation on Wednesday afternoon.
The Yukon government is consolidating many of its economic initiatives, particularly for COVID-19 support, into one overarching plan.
The Yukon government is consolidating many of its economic initiatives, particularly for COVID-19 support, into one overarching plan.
The move was announced late Wednesday afternoon during a news conference with Ranj Pillai, the deputy premier and Economic Development minister, and Jeanie McLean, the minister of Tourism and Culture.
The government is calling the new approach an “Economic Resilience Plan”. Pillai called it a “blueprint” for government action.
A news release that followed the news conference stated “the Government of Yukon has released its economic resilience plan to help Yukon’s economy rebound with responsiveness and adaptability while Yukoners remain safe and healthy.
“The economic resilience plan is a strategic response that looks at current planned projects and programs with an eye to maximizing benefits while outlining new initiatives to support Yukoners as we adapt and build economic resilience.”
Pillai explained the plan “charts the government’s economic response to the pandemic and how we are adapting to build economic resilience. It identifies five key areas of focus: people, jobs, business supports, infrastructure development and economic diversification.
“It’s a signal we’re ready to get the economy going,” he said.
It’s also a framework to enable the government to get ready to spend the money allocated in the budget,” he added. The $1.8-billion budget for the 2021-22 fiscal year was tabled last Thursday.
The release boasted “the Yukon led the country in developing vital economic programs and supports in response to the unprecedented impacts of COVID-19.
“The economic resilience plan reflects a commitment to adapt programs to meet the needs of the businesses and sectors so they can contribute to a thriving, prosperous and diversified Yukon economy.”
Pillai said the government has offered more than $44.8 million in supports across the Yukon’s economic sectors through expanded programming, new initiatives and waived or deferred fees.
In order to encourage thoughtful and responsible discussion, website comments will not be visible until a moderator approves them. Please add comments judiciously and refrain from maligning any individual or institution. Read about our user comment and privacy policies.
Your name and email address are required before your comment is posted. Otherwise, your comment will not be posted.
Comments (10)
Up 12 Down 1
Get over yourselves on Mar 16, 2021 at 10:51 am
Can Patti and Wilf just get their own rants & raves page on FB? I'm tired of seeing every second post about them calling each other out. It's childish and stupid.
Up 19 Down 2
DL on Mar 12, 2021 at 1:52 pm
The best solution is to end NOW these unnecessary lockdowns that are ruining the economy, and ruining people's health and lives.
Money doesn't grow on trees. Whatever you spend now to prop up lockdowns, you take away from much more needed programs such as affordable housing, locally grown food, dental care & pharmacare for all, etc.
Up 13 Down 5
Wilf Carter on Mar 12, 2021 at 11:33 am
Hi - Patti can you read or are just another liberal what do you call it. What does it say on my LinkedIn page which you claim to have read. If you read what you have claimed, you know everything about me like how did I know about mental health problems in the Yukon? Only mental health doctors told me that.
Yukoners do you like my new best liberal friends? She sure fits what she states.
Up 21 Down 3
Wilf Carter on Mar 12, 2021 at 10:25 am
Federal minister Catherine McKenna just announced $400 million to build bike trails across Canada while 63,000 businesses close their doors, 800,000 lost their jobs. We have the highest unemployment rate of the top 20 countries in the world at over 10%.
In the Yukon we have over 1800 families looking for housing, 400 just for public housing with 200 of them for seniors who could not afford to stay in their homes because of carbon tax and all the other taxes our Federal and Yukon governments support.
I leave Yukoner's with one question. Are trails more important than people having houses to live in???
Up 27 Down 1
Sheepchaser on Mar 12, 2021 at 7:27 am
Economic resilience. Oh boy, that’s a lofty goal. If we look at the incomes in the Yukon, we’ve got government, mining and services (tourism included). If one includes education and healthcare, then roughly 75% of personal income in the Yukon is derived from some level of government employment (fed, territorial, municipal, FN). Economically, we’re Greece before the austerity measures. Given that context, what does economic resilience look like?
Are we to develop footholds in Tech? Bio-pharma? Financial services? Autonomous robotics? Balance the budget?
Will the Yukon bureaucracy keep its anti-efficiency regulatory burdens?
Will business owners continue to spend more time filling out government forms than running their companies?
Will YG break NWtel’s monopoly on fibre networking to allow real competition to deliver the critical information infrastructure needed to get anything tech related going?
Will the Yukon population transform into obsessively hard working knowledge economy leaders?
Will literacy and intellectualism become more ‘cool’ than drinking on the street?
Will kids graduating from our schools have more to look forward to than decades of toil filled with colour commentary from government flunkies that amounts to victim shaming in the economic context?
Cause cultural art ain’t gonna cut it. Art-tech fusion out of the Northlight Innovation Centre feels like a tired half-assed disappointment already. Once the music stops, that stuff goes back to garage sale value where it was a decade ago.
News conferences don’t build economies. Robust efficiency, clear pathways through regulation, predictable human capital performance, strong candidate pool, reasonable infrastructure access, less paperwork, higher quality of life, lower taxes. That’s how you attract businesses and business development.
Let’s not forget those new racial policies. Although hiring and bidding advantage seem like a great idea on paper from the perspective of social justice, that’s proven to be a red flag for business from Zimbabwe to the Deep South of the USA. Anywhere entitlement or reparation is given priority over the sense of collective and unified struggle, those jurisdictions falter for decades. The resulting ‘divide and conquer’ perpetuates corruption at the highest levels by those who come along shortly thereafter.
The barriers to economic resilience in the Yukon are all eminently solvable, but it would require someone in charge who is not willing to play nice. Who doesn’t see that as a marker for success. Who can identify, tackle and retire the old boys club imbedded deep in the bureaucracy. Government must see itself as the problem first. Handing out grants all over the place just makes competition impossible.
Why would you start a business here knowing that a competitor with the right boxes checked on their form could just copy your otherwise successful business model, but get free money and preferential treatment? Who would take that risk?
The Yukon offers the best tax shelter in the country for corporations and yet still can’t attract winning projects. That says it all, really.
Up 9 Down 0
Arturs on Mar 12, 2021 at 5:35 am
@Yukoner1 - Spending money and Government action are two different things in most circumstance. Lumping is for lumpers.
Up 3 Down 11
Patti Eyre on Mar 11, 2021 at 4:38 pm
@wilf: and where are you from? In your post about the late Mr. Lang you state he showed you the ropes, which is another way of saying you moved here. Tell us Wilf, where are you from?
Up 30 Down 8
Yukoner1 on Mar 11, 2021 at 3:18 pm
"The government is calling the new approach an “Economic Resilience Plan”. Pillai called it a “blueprint” for government action."
They made a blueprint for how to spend money. Isn't that what a budget is? Did someone inform Ranj that the budget is the blueprint? Does he not know the definition of budget? Can we get a dictionary over here?
Up 30 Down 9
Will you be linking the payouts to EI? on Mar 11, 2021 at 2:52 pm
I'm just making the assumption that you're going to drain any savings account that exists.
Up 28 Down 12
Wilf Carter on Mar 11, 2021 at 1:57 pm
There is nothing in here with any real solution just a lot nice words that show no sense of direction Yukoners can support. Ranj you talk but what have you delivered? Show Yukoners in fact based measurement of what you have done.
I sent one of your staff member a response to the budget you brought out.
What I stated is you need a cost benefit analysis of every dollar you spend but you don't get it do you Ranj.
Maybe call Dave Dingwall your friend who is President of Yukon university and a former taker of tax payers money when it was handed out by liberals. $600,000 a year for Dave Dingwall as President of Treasury board.
Yukoners Ranj is from NS and thinks he knows what's best for Yukoners in the future. He speaks and says nothing of value for Yukoners
Let's give some example of Ranj statements:
We are selling 279 lots in Whitehorse when the demand is over 1,000 and at the auction there was 850 bidders for lots in Whitehorse.
He stated these lots would drive down the price of housing in Whitehorse. Than that means that the people who paid $500,000 for a house will now be worth $350,000.
Best thing to do is give the keys to the bank like the liberals are doing to Alberta right now.
Ranj, Richard, Sandy, Trudeau and Larry has not asked what small business needs to make it through the hard times which liberals have created. The reason is they don't know what they are doing.
We are in such a mess that it is not going to be easy to get out of it because of all the mistakes liberals have done managing Yukon government!!!