Premier Darrell Pasloski has tabled a letter from the Yukon’s conflict of interest commissioner that he says exonerates him from any inappropriate actions in the Mountain View Golf Course deal, which itself was legitimate, according to the government.

But the NDP told the legislature Thursday that Pasloski, who was a Mountain View board member when the transaction went down, has been “all but caught with his hand in the cookie jar.” He now leads a party that is “riddled with cronyism,” said NDP Leader Liz Hanson.

The controversial arrangement saw the government quietly hand over $750,000 to Mountain View to discharge its sizable debt, provide an additional cash boost and put a 51-hectare parcel of land — leased by the course in 1997 — back in government hands.

The NDP brought the “backroom deal” to light last week after Meadow Lakes Golf and Country Club owner Jeff Luehmann spent a year and hundreds of dollars trying to wrest relevant documents from the government via access-to-information requests.

The deal went through in February 2011 following months of back-and-forth between senior territorial and municipal civil servants and direction from then-Community Services minister Archie Lang.

Conflict of interest commissioner David Phillip Jones wrote that “there is no actual or perceived conflict of interest under the Act....”

The Conflict of Interest Act relates to potential conflicts while MLAs and ministers are in those roles. “No conflict between a person’s private interests and his or her governmental responsibilities can arise before they become a member.”

Pasloski resigned from the Mountain View board on May 27, 2011 — about three months after the deal went through — and stepped into the premier’s office the next day.

Hanson focused initially on who knew what, rather than outright conflicts of interest. She noted government ministers have claimed ignorance of the arrangement, which occurred under the previous Yukon Party regime and then-premier Dennis Fentie.

Education Minister Elaine Taylor was in cabinet at the time, while Energy, Minister Scott Kent and Community Services Minister Brad Cathers received a briefing in October 2013 alerting them to the deal — “yet they both claim ignorance,” Hanson said.

“Now we know that (Pasloski) himself was on the board of the golf club when the secretive deal was made, just months before he became premier.”

Kent responded in question period yesterday: “With respect to this deal, obviously it was made by a previous minister and it appeared at that time to address some of the expressed needs of Yukoners at that time — first, of course, being the need for land.”

He pointed to the “crisis for lots” in the Whitehorse area in 2011. He repeated the government defence that the “prime location” was taken back as a potential expansion site for the Whistle Bend subdivision, despite the fact the city of Whitehorse explicitly stated its disinterest in a parcel that a feasibility study showed to be largely unsuitable for development.

Kent also said that bailing out the indebted non-profit was a motivating factor in the cash handover, $500,000 of which went almost directly to discharging the golf club’s mortgage.

“You know, other Yukon NGOs have been in difficulty and they didn’t get the friendly gestures like this one did. By avoiding the issue, this government is confirming the suspicions of many Yukoners that this Yukon Party government is riddled with cronyism,” Hanson said.

“Every time more details come out, the government claims that they are learning about it, but what they are learning about is becoming less credible. We have seen the documents, and they have the premier’s fingerprints all over them.

“Does the premier honestly believe that Yukoners trust him and his cabinet when they pretend they didn’t know what happened?” she asked.

Kent responded with a tribute to volunteers and NGO board members across the territory.

Pasloski has recused himself from discussion of the affair, following advice from the conflict of interest commissioner.

“(A)ny involvement by him in responding to this inquiry might create a perceived conflict of interest in light of his previous involvement as a member of the board of directors of Mountain View Golf Course,” Jones wrote.

The letter was sent Dec. 4 and tabled in the house the same day. It came in response to questions from NDP MLA Kate White and Liberal Leader Sandy Silver.

In 2008, Pasloski ran federally for the Conservative Party, finishing a close second to incumbent Liberal Larry Bagnell. In May 2010, he ascended to the golf club’s board, and announced his candidacy for leader of the Yukon party in April 2011.

“At the same time, the Conservative Senator Dan Lang’s brother — the minister behind the Mountain View bailout — was in the Yukon Party cabinet. Two months after the government’s deal with the golf club, the former Conservative Party candidate became the premier and the leader of the Yukon Party,” Hanson said.

“Talk about a coalition,” she added, inverting the government’s oft-repeated characterization of the NDP and Liberal opposition.

“Instead of coming clean with Yukoners, the premier is hiding behind his ministers and pretending he had nothing to do with this backroom deal. Yukoners know that this is a prime example of the old boys’ club at work. Yukoners know that this is an inside job,” Hanson said.

Silver tabled a motion callng on the government “to tell Yukoners what budget document funding for the Mountain View Golf Course buyback was contained in.”

Nowhere in the 2010-11 supplementary budget is the covert $750,000 buyback identifiable, though much smaller capital expenditures — adding up to $54 million and $5.5 million in Community Services and EMR, respectively — are listed.

The current government fought the release of documents related to the “buyback” of its own land from Mountain View Golf Club, resulting in an independent inquiry and a months-long battle for records that eventually saw the light of day, the Star revealed Monday.

One of those documents suggests former premier Dennis Fentie was aware of the deal.

On Christmas Eve of 2013, Diane McLeod-McKay, the information and privacy commissioner, launched a review of the Community Services department over its refusal to grant access to dozens of documents requested by Luehmann.

The privately owned business competes with the non-profit Mountain View for customers.

Luehmann had requested copies of “all records and information regarding land transactions ... between Government of Yukon and (Mountain View) from 1998 to present.”

Community Services twice extended the 30-day deadline by a month, with an eventual due date of Dec. 10, 2013. The department then failed to get back to Luehmann by that date.

Territorial legislation states a failure to respond in time “is to be treated as a decision to refuse access to the record.”

McLeod-McKay’s 36-page report, released in August, found that Community Services “had no authority ... to refuse access to the records or part thereof.”

Four of the 52 records were “letters written to Yukon Government employees and the Premier (Fentie) by Third Party representatives,” McLeod-McKay wrote.