A new commission will review, and possibly suggest changes to, the territory’s election ridings.
After every second election the Yukon government is required to create an electoral district boundaries commission. For the next year the commission is being asked to “review the existing electoral district boundaries and to make proposals regarding the boundaries, number and names of the electoral districts that should be in place at the time of the next general election,” according to a government statement.
Each political party with seats in the legislative assembly appoints one representative to the commission. Though the appointees are not allowed to be government employees, no one on this year’s commission is new to politics.
The Yukon Party has gone with Currie Dixon, a former minister and the party’s campaign chair during the last territorial election.
The NDP is being represented by Anne Tayler, a former candidate in the territorial election who worked with NDP candidate Melissa Atkinson during the last federal election.
The Liberals have chosen Darren Parsons, a local political operative who has worked on a handful of campaigns including former MP Ryan Leef’s and the leadership campaign of former Yukon Party premier Darrell Pasloski.
The chair of the commission is required to be a Yukon Supreme Court judge. According to the legislation, the chair is chosen by the senior judge, not a political party. In this case Justice Ron Veale appears to have chosen himself as chair. Veale has experience in politics: he was Liberal leader for a short time in the early 1980s.
The fifth member of the commission is chief electoral officer Lori McKee.
The commission will hold public hearings and issue an interim report within seven months. A final report will come five months after that.