“With us, you don’t have to be strictly to the left or to the right,” Liberal Leader Sandy Silver said Thursday.

Speaking at a noon-hour press conference yesterday, he welcomed two new potential candidates for the 2016 territorial election – city councillor John Streicker and Rod Taylor.

In other words, Silver is welcoming Streicker and Taylor with open arms, despite their seemingly clashing political backgrounds.

Aside from his position on council, Streicker was the Yukon’s Green Party candidate in the 2008 and 2011 federal elections.

He came third behind Liberal Larry Bagnell and Conservative Ryan Leef in 2011, receiving 19 per cent of the territory’s votes.

Streicker told reporters the principles he wishes to follow – including sustainability, diversity, grassroots democracy and social justice – are still with him.

Asked about his Green Party membership, Streicker said he has decided to keep it.

Months before the 2011 territorial election, Taylor ran against Darrell Pasloski for the leadership of the Yukon Party, eventually losing to the current premier.

When he initially announced he would be running for the Yukon Party leadership, Taylor told the Star a question from a CBC reporter was a “moment of truth” for him.

He believes it was reporter Nancy Thomson who brought up the fact that Taylor had been recruited by the Liberal Party for that election as well, and had been in “serious discussions” with them.

“I knew if I told the truth, it would open a can of worms that would likely not get put back,” Taylor recalled in an interview this morning.

But he answered her honestly – he did not agree with the Liberal leadership at the time, when Arthur Mitchell was at the party’s helm.

Taylor also felt the Yukon Party was more “to the centre than it turned out they actually were.”

He lists the party’s handling of the Peel watershed management file and court case as an example of a decision made by a non-collaborative government that goes against his belief of listening to the people and coming clean about decisions.

“There’s always 15 per cent that want to nuke and pave everything,” Taylor said.

“There’s always 15 per cent that want to make everything a park. It’s that reasonable 70 per cent that should (gauge) if you’ve found a true compromise.”

It was the Yukon Party’s “complete refusal to accept public consultation” in the case of the Peel, he said, that has resulted in a “debate about democracy.”

Taylor’s shift in perspective with regard to the Yukon Party was on the minds of Yukoners at Thursday’s press conference.

During the session, he reiterated his belief that “politicians should be able to change their minds.”

The key to managing that, he said, is with transparency.

“The litmus test is whether or not I have the honesty and integrity to stand up to you and say, ‘You know what? I’m changing my mind; and these are the reasons why.’”

The conversation about the two men’s political backgrounds happened right away, Silver told the Star.

Silver said he needs to have a team of people who can challenge his point of view– so the diversity in the candidates becomes an asset.

“When I think about John, for example, the last thing I think about is his affiliation with his other parties.”

Both Taylor and Streicker favour Silver’s “non-partisan” approach to politics.

“I want to put the people of the Yukon ahead of partisan politics ... And that’s precisely why I chose the Liberals,” Streicker said.

The councillor told the crowd that although it was a difficult decision to leave municipal politics for the territorial level after a single term on council, he hopes to fuse some of his city goals into the territory as a whole.

He noted he still has several months left in his term as city councillor, with the municipal election being on Oct. 15.

Streicker is a professional engineer and a science advisor at the Yukon Research Centre.

Taylor is the CEO of the International Ecotourism Development Corp., a company that creates world-class eco-resorts and provides consultation services to the tourism industry.

Taylor is the former owner/operator of Uncommon Journeys Ltd., a high‐end adventure travel company specializing in remote wilderness travel in the North.

He is also a former director of Northern Vision Development, a hotel and real estate developer in the Yukon.

In 2013, the married father of a young daughter became one of the founders and the vice-president/director of the Friends of Mt. Sima Society.

He is the past president of the Tourism Industry Association of the Yukon, and is serving his second term as a board director of Canada’s Crown Corporation for tourism, the Canadian Tourism Commission.

It’s not known which ridings the two Liberals are looking at running in should they be nominated.

The Liberals will have nominations and candidates’ individual riding selections finalized in the fall, when they will also be holding a policy convention.

The Liberals have held power once since the introduction of territorial political parties in 1978.

Pat Duncan headed a Liberal regime from 2000 to 2002, when it was toppled by the Yukon Party in that year’s election.