A speech by a Yukon government minister on the importance of historical record marking never got marked in Hansard after a rule change allowed for ministerial statements to be rejected from going to the floor of the legislature in the first place.
Neither did speeches in the form of ministerial statements updating Yukoners on public engagements, announcing the Yukon government’s five-year innovation strategy and summarizing the government’s work during the fall sitting of the Yukon Legislative Assembly.
Other ministerial statements that were blocked after the standing orders were amended this fall include announcing that funding for the Yukon Permanent Art Collection’s annual call for submissions has been permanently doubled from $30,000 to $60,000, updating Yukoners on Operation NANOOK-TATIGIIT, updating Yukoners on Car 867 after its first year, announcing the strategic framework for French-language services and reminding Yukoners about winter emergency preparedness.
Yukon Party house leader Scott Kent said by phone on Jan. 9 that prior to the rule change the Official Opposition felt like ministerial statements weren’t being used properly in the house, “even to the point where sometimes they were abused to re-announce previous press releases and stuff like that.”
Now that house leaders can review and approve or deny the topics of ministerial statements, Kent said time will be better spent debating government bills and budgets. One of the rules of thumb the Yukon Party uses to determine if a ministerial statement should go ahead is whether the topic has been covered or could be covered in a news release or press conference.
“The process worked and one of the important things that we were able to do was save some of the valuable time of the legislature,” he said, noting there’s only four-and-a-half hours per day and 60 sitting days per year to get though an “awful lot of business.”
If house leaders allowed a topic to go ahead, then the full transcript of the ministerial statement would be provided to the opposition to give them a chance to respond, as usual.
An email statement from Renée Francoeur in cabinet communications indicates that although news releases and newsroom statements went out on certain topics, ministerial statements would’ve “provided the opportunity to emphasize and discuss the impacts and importance of these subjects. The statements in the House also would have presented Opposition with the chance to raise questions, express concerns, and convey thoughts from their constituents on these matters.”
“On a final note, ministerial statements serve the important purpose of providing information to Yukoners that is recorded in Hansard, serving as an historical record for future generations about the most important issues of today,” Francoeur wrote.
Hansard contains the “official substantially verbatim transcript of what is said” in the legislative assembly, per the legislative assembly’s website.
Ministerial statements are part of the daily routine in the legislative assembly. Ministers can speak for up to four minutes before a member of each opposition party can respond within four minutes. Then the minister can respond to that. The ministerial statement is intended to be about government policy or a matter of public interest. It is supposed to be provided to the opposition by 11 a.m. that day.
In late October 2023, opposition MLAs defeated the minority Yukon Liberal Party government in a vote on a motion to require that ministerial statements get majority house leader approval before going ahead each day.
During the fall sitting of the legislative assembly, the Yukon government had accused the opposition of attacking free speech for putting forward a motion that supports a recommendation from an all-party committee.
Yukon Party Lake Laberge MLA Brad Cathers gave the notice of motion in writing on Oct. 17. Cathers told the News by phone later that afternoon that if passed, it would lead to the report containing the recommendation by the standing committee on rules, elections and privileges being accepted.
In the report, the committee is recommending that the government house leader and at least one opposition party house leader agree that a ministerial statement should be delivered that day. The report was tabled on the first day of the fall sitting by Yukon Liberal Party MLA for Whitehorse West Richard Mostyn.
The committee is made up of two Yukon Liberal Party MLAs (including Mostyn), two Yukon Party MLAs (including Cathers) and a Yukon NDP MLA.
The new rule immediately went into effect after the vote on Oct. 25.
According to data previously obtained by the News from the clerk of the legislative assembly, ministerial statements were rare to nonexistent under the Yukon Party government and went up under the Liberal government. In 2022, the Liberal government gave 58 ministerial statements out of a total maximum 60 sitting days in a year.
During a phone interview on Jan. 9, Yukon NDP Leader Kate White mentioned the sheer amount of time that her team has spent responding to more than 250 ministerial statements made by the Liberals since taking power. White is relieved there’s a way out now.
“[The 2023 fall sitting] went smoother and was a lot more efficient,” she said.
Contact Dana Hatherly at dana.hatherly@yukon-news.com