The Yukon’s premier and deputy premier have expressed their “deep” sorrow and support on the eve of a coroner’s inquest that will examine the 2022-23 deaths of four women in Whitehorse.

All four had connections to the Whitehorse Emergency Shelter. The inquest will begin Monday morning.

Cassandra Warville, Myranda Aleisha Dawn Tizya-Charlie, Josephine Elizabeth Hager and Darla Skookum are the names of the women who have passed.

The deaths of Warville, 35, and Tizya-Charlie, 34, were reported on Jan. 19, 2022.

Their loss of life occurred at the Alexander Street shelter, and was found to be the result of toxic illicit drugs.

The death of Hager, 38, was reported on Feb. 1, 2023, while the passing of Skookum, 52, was disclosed on April 16, 2023.

“These individuals were accessing services at the Whitehorse Emergency Shelter at the time of their deaths,” the Yukon Coroner’s Service noted in a statement in November 2023.

Premier Ranj Pillai held a news conference this morning to discuss the coming inquest and various entities’ persistent efforts to improve downtown safety near the shelter and elsewhere.

“I will start by expressing our profound sorrow and extend our condolences to the families and friends of Cassandra Warville, Myranda Aleisha Dawn Tizya-Charlie, Josephine Elizabeth Hager, and Darla Skookum,” Pillai told the media briefing, held at the Jim Smith Building.

“Cassandra, Myranda, Josephine and Darla had life left to live, memories still to be made, milestones to achieve, and love left to bestow upon their family, friends, and communities.

“Like all who have lost family and friends due to the substance use health emergency, the grief of their families, friends, and communities is unimaginable,” the premier addded.

“We stand with them in their times of need, offering our support, compassion, and solidarity.”

As a government, Pillai said, “we have a solemn responsibility to ensure the safety, well-being, and dignity of all individuals who seek services from us.

“The premature loss of life under any circumstance is unacceptable. Cassandra, Myranda, Josephine and Darla were seeking our help, and their lives still ended too soon. For this, we are deeply sorry.”

Hager was a student of Pillai’s in one of his previous careers.

“I feel her loss personally, knowing that she was so full of life and excitement for her future,” the premier said.

“I have reached out to the families and spoken with them about what these individuals meant to them. I apologized to them directly as well.”

Through the inquest, the coroner will be conducting an inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the four deaths, Pillai noted. He then referred to reports previously conducted on the shelter’s operations.

“The lessons we will learn here will be in addition to those learned through the House of Wolf and Vink reports, the conversations that have been had with people with lived experiences, discussions with members of the downtown Whitehorse community and First Nations leadership, and through the ongoing engagement processes related to the new health authority legislation,” he said.

“From these reports, conversations and engagements, we have learned that while the facility at 405 Alexander (the shelter’s address) is meeting the needs of many who use it short-term, more needs to be done to address the needs of Yukoners seeking longer-term supports.”

The government’s priorities now, Pillai said, “are to co-operate with the coroner’s inquest as they seek to provide answers to the public, to understand what happened and why, and to take swift and decisive action to work to prevent such tragedies from occurring in the future.”

Deputy Premier Jeanie McLean told this morning’s briefing “it cannot be lost that we are speaking about the deaths of four Indigenous women.

“Their gender and their Indigeneity cannot be ignored when we speak about these tragic losses.

“I knew these women,” McLean said.

“Their stories are not that different from the stories of so many other Yukoners. We owe it to their memories – and to the memories of all we have lost to the substance use health emergency – to pursue justice and accountability with the utmost diligence, determination, and respect.”

Everyone deserves dignity and justice, McLean added.

“The way these women died was neither dignified nor just.

“The pathways that brought these women to the emergency shelter are outside the scope of the coroner’s inquest, but they are not unknown.”

The circumstances that led to their deaths are covered in-depth in the work produced by the Yukon Advisory Committee on MMIWG2S+ and are discussed in the Yukon’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirit+ People Strategy, McLean noted. “We must breathe life into the work,” she said.

“In the days and weeks that follow, we will all be focused on what happened at the emergency shelter in Whitehorse. But we must not let this lead us to believe that this is an issue specific to Whitehorse.

“We see vulnerable people, vulnerable women, vulnerable Indigenous people die from drug poisoning, from suicide, from the impacts of colonialism each and every day across Canada.

“For the families of those who were lost – and to all those who may feel these losses directly – we have made a number of supports available,” the deputy premier said.

Through Yukon First Nations governments, YG is providing funding so community members can travel to Whitehorse to support the families.

Additional supports in communities, as requested, include increasing the availability of in-person and virtual Rapid Access counselling across the territory during the inquest, and working with Indigenous Women’s organizations and Yukon First Nations to enhance the supports and safe spaces and cultural supports they provide.

“In closing, I want to acknowledge the difficulty that many will face over the next few weeks,” McLean told media representatives.

“Please reach out to the supports you have, reach out to friends and family members. Check in on each other. Help is always available. You are not alone.”

Pillai said his government has worked to address the needs of vulnerable Yukoners through the Downtown Whitehorse Safety Response Action plan, the Departments of Health and Social Services and of Justice, and the Yukon Housing Corp.

He said his government is “grateful” to its partners at the Council of Yukon First Nations (CYFN), the Kwanlin Dün First Nation and the RCMP, as well as Blood Ties Four Directions, Safe at Home, and Connective (formerly the John Howard Society), which now manages the shelter.

“In the days and weeks ahead, through the coroner’s inquest, Yukoners will learn details about these deaths, two of which happened while the Government of Yukon operated the shelter at 405 Alexander, and two of which happened after the facility was under the operation of Connective, in partnership with CYFN,” Pillai said.

“We owe it to Yukoners to continue to be transparent about what we are doing, and what we intend to do to address these tragedies and work to prevent any such recurrences.

“But let us also acknowledge that no policy changes, program reforms, or apologies can ever heal the pain of losing a loved one.”

A coroner’s inquest is a public inquiry that serves three prima-ry functions:

1) to determine the facts related to a death, including the identity of the deceased and how, when, where and by what means the individual came to their death, as well as a classification for the death;

2) to make recommendations, where appropriate and supported by evidence, to prevent deaths in similar circumstances; and

3) to ensure public confidence that the circumstances surrounding the death of an individual will not be overlooked, concealed or ignored.

“By inquiring into the facts and circumstances surrounding a number of deaths at the shelter, this inquest will identify how those deaths came to be and facilitate the making of recommendations to avoid preventable deaths,” the coroner’s service said last November. It had originally announced its intent to organize an inquest in 2022.

The presiding coroner and a jury will hear evidence from witnesses under oath to determine the facts surrounding the four women’s deaths.

The jury will be able to make recommendations aimed at preventing deaths under similar circumstances.

The jury cannot make any finding of legal responsibility nor express any conclusion of law.

The inquest will begin at 10:30 a.m. Monday at the Gold Rush Inn, and could go as long as three weeks.