I would like to thank the panel presenting the Peel appeal trial update at the Beringia Centre on the evening of Dec. 15 for changing my mind.
With the muddled and seemingly inconclusive result of the Yukon Court of Appeal trial, my initial thought was, “Let’s just let it go.” We could focus our efforts on our upcoming territorial election and ensure this government, that is so detached from the will of the people, is not re-elected, thus negating the need for an appeal.
However, the panel at the Beringia Centre, with representation from the three First Nations and our two environmental organizations involved with the case, clearly explained that this flawed Yukon Court of Appeal decision can be precedent setting for future land use planning.
The Umbrella Final Agreement has been too hard won to be so blatantly flouted. No government should be rewarded for such an injudicious challenge.
So yes, an appeal to our highest court is clearly necessary. But we do have an upcoming election, and the focus of our efforts for a change in government has never been more paramount.
There is not enough room here to relate what I think of a government that couldn’t care less of its mandate as elected representatives of the people.
I remind everyone: the Yukon Party, while campaigning last election, lacked the integrity to reveal its true intent for the Peel, precisely because the party knew it went against the wishes of a vast majority of Yukoners. Only when elected to the protection of a false majority did its deception come to light.
Public consultation to this government is merely an inconvenient formality. The almost unanimous opposition to fracking expressed by so many Yukoners to the Select Committee does not jive in the least with the government’s decision to open our beautiful territory to fracking. The Yukon Party does not care what we have to say beyond how our words can be moulded into the promotion of its own agenda.
So let’s finish the job we began federally and make it a clean sweep with a change in government here at home. We are long overdue for governance that respects the role of civil society, and will accept that most beautiful model of the democratic process, the final recommended plan for the Peel - and perhaps most importantly, give us electoral reform.
Whatever proportional representative electoral systems may or may not be, it is certain they plug that dreadful hole of the false majority.
With the adoption of our own system of proportional representation, never again would we be subject to a government that is willing to run away with an agenda that is in such contrast to the will of the people.
Our antiquated electoral system, and all those that subscribe to it, can have a nice home right up there in the Beringia Centre, in amongst all the other fine old dinosaurs therein.
Jim Borisenko
Tagish Lake