Highlights of History from The Whitehorse Star

Published by The Whitehorse Star on December 31, 2003.

Dateline: May 19, 2024.

    Choosing the Yukon's top 10 stories of the year is, to a large extent, an arbitrary task. It's a mixture of our judgment, of the stories which have attracted considerable media coverage, or those with the most significant effects on the largest number of Yukoners.

    Here, then, are the Star's top 10 stories of 2003.

1

    The Yukon government announces Sept. 19 it has disciplined almost 100 of its employees as part of a massive investigation into the misuse of government computers that had begun nine months earlier. Public Service Commissioner Pat Daws says 542 employees were investigated, 153 interviewed and 96 disciplined, ranging from letters of reprimands to suspensions to firings.

    While Daws says the investigation cost $127,594, the Yukon Employees Union, calling the dismissals a morale-sapping "witch hunt", predicts an ultimate cost of $1.4 million, including the costs of employees' appeal hearings scheduled for 2004.

    One employee had 2,000 pornographic pictures saved on a computer, Daws says in June. Nycole Turmel, president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, the YEU's umbrella union, visits Whitehorse shortly after Daws' announcements and says she is "ashamed' of the stance of John Edzerza, the minister responsible for the Public Service Commission, on the computer investigation.

2

    The prolonged failures of two cabinet ministers' companies to pay back money they borrowed from the Yukon government many years previously prove to be an Achilles' heel for the Yukon Party throughout most of 2003. On Dec. 11, Premier Dennis Fentie announces the government will turn over all its $5.6 million worth of delinquent loans accounts to collection agencies. Delinquent loans recipients will be given six months to renegotiate the interest rates on their obligations. The opposition calls his policy a way for ministers Peter Jenkins' and Archie Lang's companies to evade their full financial responsibilities ($275,000 for Jenkins' companies and $117,000 for Lang's firms). The government foregives four non-profit groups for their unpaid loans, totalling $485,000.

3

    Commissioner Jack Cable gives his assent March 20 to five major laws marking a historic transfer of powers from the federal government to the territory effective April 1. The Territorial Lands Act, Waters Act, Quartz Mining Act, Placer Mining Act and Environmental Assessment Act had to be approved to permit the long-sought transfer of natural resources control from Ottawa to the territory.

    "It begins a new era for the Yukon, and we will now be masters in our house when it comes to control of lands, resources and waters," says Premier Dennis Fentie. More than 200 federal employees are transferred to the territorial government.

4

    Calling the process flawed and divisive, Premier Dennis Fentie announces Jan, 27 his government has put the Yukon Protected Areas Strategy on hold indefinitely. The strategy's fate will be determined by the government's consultations with Yukoners, he says.

    The strategy stemmed from a 1992 commitment by all provincial and territorial governments to protect representative areas of Canada's various ecosystems. The process has long been attacked by the mining industry. The Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, however, says the strategy's shelving breaks a Yukon Party promise made during the 2002 election campaign.

5

    On Aug. 11, after months of public debate, Whitehorse city council unanimously passes its contentious smoking bylaw. Under its terms, any public place that admits minors must be smoke-free by Jan. 1, 2004. Bars are given until Jan. 1, 2005 to follow suit. Council is warned that the bylaw will result in the closures of bars. Janice Lattin, who operates the Roadhouse Inn, banned smoking for August and tells council her revenues have plunged 40 per cent for the first half of August as compared to a year earlier. In the face of declining business, the Roadhouse drops plans to offer some smoke-free nights.

6

    The long-boiling controversy over new environmental regulations for the Yukon's placer mining industries eases somewhat on May 27 when the parties involved agree to rethink the rules.

    The federal and territorial governments and the Council of Yukon First Nations say they'll strive to reach a new agreement on the regulatory regimes over the next year, ending in April 2004. The initial plan, announced Dec. 16, 2002, would have forced many miners out of the industry, the Klondike Placer Miners' Association has said. "Black Wednesday", staged March 12, saw most Dawson City businesses close in sympathy with the miners' plight, with an accompanying protest. Then-federal Fisheries Minister Robert Thibault visits Dawson in July to explore the issue. He praises all the politicians who have worked on the file - excluding the territory's MP, Larry Bagnell.

7

    An uproar ensues over Justice Minister Elaine Taylor's decision to order the release of a Capital Towing Services tow truck impounded by the RCMP near Whitehorse on July 20. On two occasions, justices of the peace had rejected the company's bid to have the vehicle released. The driver is eventually jailed for impaired driving. Senior JP Dean Cameron advises other motorists appealing the seizures of their vehicles to go see Taylor. That prompts Premier Dennis Fentie to advise Cameron to do his job instead of passing decisions off to Taylor. Chief Territorial Court Judge Heino Lilles defends Cameron. The government promises to amend the Motor Vehicles Act to avoid placing the Justice minister in the position of a de facto appeals court.

8

    It's revealed Nov. 21 that Premier Dennis Fentie's 1976 conviction of violating the Narcotics Act, discussed during the 2002 election campaign, involved his selling heroin in Alberta. The drug had not been publicly identified during the campaign. Fentie served 17 months of a four-year penitentiary term for his offence. The premier says he is "embarrassed" by the latest revelation. His supporters, who crowd the legislature's public gallery Nov, 24, lambast the media for dredging up his past. Political strategists counter that the premier could have avoided the story's resurgence had he been completely frank during the election campaign.

9

    Whitehorse voters opt mostly for the status quo in the Oct. 16 municipal election, returning Mayor Ernie Bourassa for a second term. Bourassa racks up 1,806 votes, compared to former Liberal cabinet minister Sue Edelman's 1,257. Coun. Samson Hartland attracts only 325 votes to finish last in the five-person field.

    With Coun. Duke Connelly's retirement and Coun. Linda Casson' s defeat, the new council boasts three newcomers: Yvonne Harris, Mel Stehelin and Bev Buckway. The voter turnout is 49.1 per cent.

    The highest-profile issues throughout the campaign were the cutbacks to the transit system that took effect July 2, continuing waterfront development and the preparations for the 2007 Canada Winter Games, including the centrepiece multiplex.

10

    In late November, Whitehorse resident Wendy Reid abandons her months-long quest to show she wasn't responsible for stealing $212,000 over 3 1/2 years from her employer, the Super A grocery store in Porter Creek. The 35-year-old woman withdraws her notice to the Yukon Court of Appeal challenging her Yukon Supreme Court conviction in May. That court had ordered that her initial guilty plea stand, though she had sought to withdraw the plea. The Crown is appealing the 18-month conditional sentence Reid received in June, with a hearing scheduled for January 2004 in Vancouver.