The Nov. 5 committee of the whole meeting of the new Dawson City council began with four of the new councillors reciting the Oath of Office, as administered by chief administrative officer David Henderson.
The new council is composed of Mayor Stephen Johnson and councillors Justine Hobbs, Cud Eastbound and Darwyn Lynn, all of whom were present for the event. The fifth councillor, Tobias Graf, will be sworn in after he returns from his vacation in Switzerland.
Each councillor recited the oath as follows, by making a solemn affirmation, as is permitted in the legislation.
“1. That I am a Canadian citizen;
“2. That I am not in any way disqualified from holding the office of (Mayor or Councillor)
“3. That I have not, nor will I have while holding office, any interest, directly or indirectly, in any contract or services connected with the said municipality, except such as I may lawfully have under the provisions of the Municipal Act;
“4. That I have not, by myself or any other person, knowingly employed any bribery, corruption or intimidation to gain my election;
“5. That I will not, without due authority in that behalf, disclose or make known any matter that comes to my knowledge by reason of my office; and
“6. That I will faithfully perform the duties of my office, and will not allow any private interest to influence my conduct in public matters.”
Normally this oath would be followed by an Oath of Allegiance to the monarch, but one member, Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in citizen Darwyn Lynn, raised objections to the oath, given the Crown’s history with Indigenous People. Johnson polled the other councillors, and they jointly decided to support these concerns and not take the pledge.
When interviewed on Thursday, Johnson said that the people at the Yukon government Community Services Branch have been very helpful in seeking solutions to resolve this problem, but noted that it will have to be resolved within 40 days, or else there may have to be a new election.
Johnson did not phrase things in this way at the meeting, where he said: “Normally there are two oaths. We just took the Oath of Office. The other is the Oath of Allegiance (to the Crown). Our team thought about this a great deal today and, working with Community Services (…) there will be a new Oath of Allegiance, through a mechanism that the Yukon government will be partaking in, within the next two to three weeks, and once that new oath is prepared, it will come back to us and we will complete that type of procedure.”
The other formal item of business was the presentation of the official gold studded Chain of Office to Johnson by Henderson.
In a return to previous practice, the new council voted to have Johnson chair the meeting, a duty which was removed from the mayor’s authority by the previous council just about a year ago.
Johnson spoke briefly.
“I am very pleased to be back at this table. I've had a three-year holiday, so I’m going to be a little rusty but certainly, working together with this group, I know that we will get some very good things accomplished for our great town. I want to say thank you so much to all those who put their names forward in this election. It’s tremendous to see that kind of dedication to this town," he said.
“That dedication is highly regarded, and I certainly wish to thank the outgoing council members for their service to our town. Thanks go to Julia Spriggs, Brennan Lister, Patrik Pikálik, Alex Somerville, and finally, Bill Kendrick, who served on council from, I think it was, April 2010.”
The remainder of the public portion of the roughly two-and-a-half hour meeting dealt mostly with reports that were given for information purposes, and introducing the new councillors to material they will be dealing with at subsequent meetings, including financial reporting, matters concerning land issues, and questions related to the further development of a solid waste management plan and the eventual shutdown of the Dawson City television cable system, as well as a reworking of the Council Proceedings Bylaw
Dan Davidson taught in Beaver Creek, Faro, and Dawson from 1976-2008. Since 1977 he has been writing reviews, news and commentary for the Whitehorse Star and What’s Up Yukon, and recently for the late Yukon Star. In 1989 he helped to found the Klondike Sun, which he edited for 31 years, and remains on its board of directors.
