Yukon.

• Author: McCormick, Floyd
• Position: Politics

The last submission outlined certain changes to the composition of party caucuses in the Yukon Legislative Assembly. These changes included the resignation of Haakon Arntzen (formerly the independent member for Copperbelt, and before that the Yukon Party member for the same constituency), the election of Liberal Party leader Arthur Mitchell in the Copperbelt by-election; and the resignation of Peter Jenkins (Klondike) from the governing Yukon Party cabinet and caucus. Mr. Jenkins now sits as an independent member.

As a result the House standings--which had been Yukon Party 11, NDP 5, Liberals 1 and one independent member during the 2005 Spring Sitting--were Yukon Party 10, NDP 5, Liberals 2, and one independent by the end of the 2005 Fall Sitting.

This, however, was not the end of the changes. On February 28 the leader of the official opposition, Todd Hardy (Whitehorse Centre, NDP) announced that his House leader, Gary McRobb (Kluane), had been dismissed from caucus. McRobb's transgression came in the form of a letter to his constituents wherein he asked them to express their view as to whether he should contest the next general election (due later this year) as a New Democrat, Liberal or independent candidate. The following day Mr. Hardy excised Eric Fairclough (Mayo-Tatchun) from the caucus for having conducted a similar, if less formal, survey of his constituents. As a result the party standings were now: Yukon Party 10, NDP 3, Liberals 2, and three independent members.

Given the reasons for the change in the NDP caucus speculation was high that Mr. McRobb and/or Mr. Fairclough would join the Liberal caucus. On March 16 Mr. McRobb did so, giving the Liberal caucus the same number of members as that of the NDP. Mr. Fairclough, however, remained an independent member as the 2006 Spring Sitting began on March 30, 2006.

However, on May 1, 2006 Mr. Fairclough announced that he had joined the Liberal Party caucus. This changed the House standings to" Yukon Party 10, Liberal Party 4, NDP 3 and one independent. As a result the Liberals have now supplanted the NDP as the official opposition.

During the controversy over changes within the NDP it has also been revealed that the minister of Education, and Justice, John Edzerza (Yukon Party, McIntyre-Takhini), spoke with Mr. Hardy during the fall of 2005 on the prospect of Mr. Edzerza leaving the Yukon Party caucus for the NDP. Mr. Hardy indicated that his party could not accept a member who had been...