There’s no date set yet for the territorial election, but the race for Whistle Bend North has already started.
The riding of Whistle Bend North is a new one, as pitched in the electoral boundaries’ commission final report, tabled last year. The commission’s recommendations were implemented in November. As per the electoral district boundaries commission final report, the riding boundaries are to be redrawn in spring 2025, given that the electoral boundaries legislation was passed in the fall sitting.
While no date has been set yet for the territorial election, it must occur by Nov. 3 of this year.
Tiara Topps is seeking the NDP nomination to run as a candidate in the riding of Whistle Bend North in the coming territorial election. The same day Topps announced she was seeking candidacy, the Yukon Party announced it would be running Porter Creek Centre MLA Yvonne Clark in the exact same riding.
Topps is a licensed practical nurse in Whitehorse who lives in Whistle Bend, and she announced her intention to run in the new riding at a press conference outside the Whitehorse General Hospital on May 13. Yukon NDP leader Kate White introduced her at the press conference on the brisk spring day.
Topps said that as a health care worker in home care and long term care settings, she’s “seen healthcare go from bad to dangerous.”
Topps said the Yukon Party and Liberal Party are to blame for the family doctor shortage in the territory. She also called the nursing bonus, introduced by the current government in 2022, “an unorganized, inequitable promise that caused division among healthcare workers.”
The nursing bonus offered a $15,000 retention bonus for registered nurses and nurse practitioners, and $8,000 for licensed practical nurses.
The status of the healthcare system has come up frequently in the Yukon legislature.
In spring of 2023, the News reported that there were over 3,800 people on the territory’s find-a-doctor waitlist.
This year, the News reported that two family doctors were closing their primary care practices in Whitehorse, and that not a single visiting doctor who came to the territory in 2024 ended up staying.
Healthcare issues are not unique to the Yukon: according to the Canadian Institute for Health Information, 5.4 million Canadian adults reported not having access to a regular health care provider.
Nationally, 83 per cent of people said they had access to a regular health-care provider in 2023. In the Yukon, that number was 78 per cent — lower than B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, but higher than P.E.I, Nunavut, and the Northwest Territories. The Yukon is on par with Newfoundland and Labrador, where 78 per cent of the population also said they had access to a regular health-care provider.
White told reporters assembled outside the Whitehorse hospital that the upcoming territorial election will be about healthcare.
White pointed to a recent bill she sponsored which bestowed the Yukon Medical Association with the power to bargain on behalf of physicians in the territory. However, in regards to potential policies to address issues in territorial healthcare, she said that the NDP’s platform would be released a later date.
“Everything else will be rolled out as we go, so having people like Tiara on side listening to doctors through the Yukon Medical Association, listening to others on the front lines, whether we're talking about paramedics or folks within the hospital corporation itself, we will be bringing forward solutions,” she said.
Topps said she has been involved in the NDP previously.
“It’s just been kind of an accumulation of issues that I've been seeing and has been lighting the fire in me to speak up a bit more publicly about these issues and bring the solutions to the forefront,” said Topps of her motivation to step up to the plate.
Yvonne Clarke, who sat in the legislature this past term as the MLA for Porter Creek Centre, is now being touted as the Yukon Party’s candidate for the same riding of Whistle Bend North. She was first elected in 2021.
According to a media release shared on May 13, Clarke had been confirmed as the candidate for Porter Creek Centre in February 2025.
According to the release, with the riding of Porter Creek Centre being rearranged to no longer include Whistle Bend, and the two ridings of Whistle Bend North and Whistle Bend South created, Clarke “had the option to choose which riding she would run in under Yukon Party rules,” per the release.
Clarke was quoted as saying she thoroughly enjoyed representing residents of Porter Creek Centre, and that she is choosing to run to represent the residents of Whistle Bend North as the neighbourhood develops. She remarked that she’s heard from Whistle Bend residents about challenges with traffic, lot development, and green streets.
Riding nomination processes for the ridings of Porter Creek Centre and Whistle Bend South will be announced via local media and party members, according to the Yukon Party release.
Contact Talar Stockton at talar.stockton@yukon-news.com
