MLAs from the governing Yukon Liberal Party joined the Official Opposition in voting in favour of a motion proposed by the Yukon Party to boost police resources and funding.
The intent of the proposal is to hire more front-line police officers in Whitehorse and rural communities, without being prescriptive about where those officers will go, despite calls from specific communities for more officers.
Lake Laberge MLA Brad Cathers, who put forward the motion, said the ratio of officers per capita has gone down under the Liberal government.
He compared numbers recently provided in the house by Justice Minister Tracy-Anne McPhee — 139 regular RCMP members, which works out to 320 officers per 100,000 people — to the past. He said that under the Yukon Party government there were 402 officers per 100,000 people in 2016.
Cathers maintains that the RCMP plays a crucial role in responding to the substance use health emergency that the Yukon government declared in January 2022. He cited, as he often does, a law enforcement report that points to at least five organized crime networks with more than 250 individuals located within and outside the territory operating as part of a growing synthetic opioid market. He said enforcement is part of tackling organized crime and the illegal drug trade.
READ MORE: At least 5 organized crime networks running Yukon’s illicit drug market: report
Justice Minister Tracy-Anne McPhee responded that, according to a 2022 report on police personnel and expenditures in Canada, the territory has the third highest police-per-capita ratio in the country, with the Yukon following behind the other two territories.
She said that the police-reported crime rate in 2022 was lower than the 2021 and 2020 rates during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
McPhee said there are nine unfilled RCMP positions for which there is funding and four vacancies due to different kinds of leave.
The three Yukon NDP MLAs voted against the motion.
“You can’t police your way out of trauma, you can’t police your way out of poverty and you can’t police your way out of where we are — society as a whole or even here in the Yukon,” Yukon NDP Leader Kate White told her colleagues in the legislative assembly.
The Yukon NDP is calling for more investments in community programs and support to deal with the root causes of crime such as social isolation and homelessness.
McPhee criticized the Yukon Party for posturing against the main and supplementary budgets while calling for more money to be spent on police. The 2023-24 budget includes a $3.5-million increase for police, McPhee told legislators on March 6.
Cathers insisted the party’s position on the budgets represents its lack of confidence in the Yukon government.
“The minister spent quite a bit of time in the house trying to spin the narrative that relied on hoping that Yukoners listening had never paid any attention to federal, territorial or provincial politics and would be surprised by the allegedly shocking revelation that the Official Opposition typically votes against the government on budget bills since they are confidence votes, which, of course, is exactly what we have done,” he said.
Contact Dana Hatherly at dana.hatherly@yukon-news.com