Editorial

Monday’s vigil in downtown Whitehorse for the victims of the terrorist attack on the Centre culturel islamique de Québec, that left six dead and 19 wounded, drew perhaps 200 shivering souls, huddled around flickering candles.

With any new government there is a period of adjustment for everyone associated with the political system.

Libtard. Dumbass. God damn idiot (sic). And those are the comments we didn’t delete. The coming of carbon pricing is not going down well among certain segments of the electorate.

Probably the truest words spoken during last weekend’s swearing-in of Yukon’s new Liberal cabinet came from the mouth of Commissioner Doug Phillips, himself a former MLA.

Can a strongman dictator who suppressed dissent, jailed and killed his political opponents, and maintained power without a democratic mandate from the people redeem his legacy by accomplishing economic, social or geopolitical good?

For Yukon miners, last weekend’s Geoscience Forum & Trade Show must have been good cause for a party.

If you’re a Yukon Party supporter, Monday night probably was not a great experience. Watching your caucus get cut in half, your leader lose his own seat and a 14-year run of power come to an end cannot be easy.

Yukon’s election campaign draws to a merciful end over the weekend and while formally it’s only been going for a month or so, the reality is that the parties have been campaigning since the summer, if not earlier.

Today marks the approximate halfway point of Yukon’s territorial election campaign. And while it’s not hard to improve upon the horrific gong show that is the U.S. presidential election, Yukon’s political parties are due a small amount of credit.

One suspects that Premier Darrell Pasloski is more than content to waltz into an election campaign against two left-leaning, vote-splitting parties who are talking about how to implement a carbon tax.