Michelle Stimson said the adversities she’s faced have given her the strength to run for Whitehorse city council.
This isn’t Stimson’s first time running for council — she ran in 2021, as well. After encountering some tribulations since that time, she said she is running again "to make this community the great place I think it deserves to finally be.” She said she thinks she can provide representation that is missing from council.
Stimson said her priority is relationship building. She’d like to run a “coffee with a councillor” program with people living at the shelter and hospital.
She said she would also focus on community safety.
“Do we need to discuss city police, security and stewards? Are we ready for a change?”
Stimson said she would also look into beautification, ensuring that there are community gardens and greenspace throughout town.
Stimson moved to Dawson City in her early twenties, staying there for ten years, she said.
“My first job was at the Triple J Hotel, and then I ended up firefighting, met a partner, we built a house with a miner. I've had a very full Yukon experience, I think,” Stimson said.
She later moved to Whitehorse as a single parent with her three children. There, she said, she worked as a clerk at the Independent grocery store.
She alleged that when she was working as a clerk at Independent in 2016, former Yukon speaker and Porter Creek MLA David Laxton sexually assaulted her during a meeting at his office. Laxton was found not guilty in 2017.
“It's a very, very small part of my life, but it affected so many things around me that gave me the courage to get into programming in this community, and it gives me the strength to stand up and say, ‘Wow, I'm going to try to run for representation on council,'” said Stimson.
She said she was evicted from her home after the court case. After an unsuccessful bid for council in 2021, she was involved in a bike accident that shattered one of the bones in her leg and left her in a wheelchair over the winter months. She said that time was isolating and she felt overwhelming guilt when people had to help her.
Stimson is now currently on social assistance, she told the News. She said it feels like it can be a deterrent to admit poverty when running for office.
“My lived experience, I think, is advocacy for these things have come my way,” said Stimson.
She said she’s a part of local advocacy group Voices Influencing Change, as well as a women’s support group. She’s also taken courses at Yukon University in criminology and she has taken the Beat the Heat course, where she got a certificate in radio and introduction to incident command systems.
Stimson said she was not comfortable providing a reference for the News.
Contact Talar Stockton at talar.stockton@yukon-news.com
