The Hon. the Speaker: I see two senators rising. Is there an agreement on the length of the bell?

[Translation]

Pursuant to rule 9-10(1) and the order adopted on September 21, 2022, the vote is deferred until tomorrow at 4:15 p.m., with the bells to ring at 4 p.m.

[English]

Leave having been given to proceed to Inquiries, Order No. 14:

On the Order:

Resuming debate on the inquiry of the Honourable Senator Duncan, calling the attention of the Senate to the one hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary of the Yukon Act, an Act of Parliament adopted on June 13, 1898.

Senator Duncan: Thank you, honourable senators. I appreciate your time in light of the hour tonight.

I rise to initiate my inquiry and to call your attention to the one hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary of the Yukon Act, an act of Parliament adopted on June 13, 1898.

There are so many stories about the Yukon to share. One day, perhaps, during my time in the Red Chamber, I too could share a chapter a day during Senators’ Statements. Although the stories are no less worthy, my eloquence needs a little more practice and perhaps a Newfoundland and Labradorian accent. No matter the accent, there is none more eloquent when speaking of the Yukon than our bard, Robert Service, who wrote:

. . . There’s the land. (Have you seen it?)

It’s the cussedest land that I know,

From the big, dizzy mountains that screen it

To the deep, deathlike valleys below.

Today, my wish is not to dwell on the poem The Spell of the Yukon, from which that is taken; rather, it is to speak of politics and the Yukon Act. As a side note, I would be remiss if I did not pay homage and offer thanks to celebrated Yukon politicians who have left their mark in Ottawa in the other place, where the Yukon Act originated. Our MPs have included: Larry Bagnell; Audrey McLaughlin, former leader of the NDP; Erik Nielsen, Deputy Prime Minister during the first Mulroney government; and Martha Louise Black. You may not be aware that Martha Louise Black was elected at 70 years of age to represent the Yukon in the other place — the second woman to be elected to the Canadian House of Commons.

Honourable senators, I wish to draw your attention to some of their work and ours on the Yukon Act as a legislative measure.

[Translation]

Colleagues, every day we provide sober second thought on legislation. You may wonder, why the Yukon Act, and why now?

[English]

This year, we celebrate its one hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary, a historic milestone in Yukon and Canadian history. I will seek forgiveness rather than permission from my learned constitutional lawyer colleagues in this chamber and elaborate on the Yukon Act as our “constitution.”

Honourable senators know that the Canadian Constitution recognizes the provinces individually. Unlike the provinces, the Yukon is recognized as a unique territory through an act of Parliament, the Yukon Act, which was given Royal Assent on June 13, 1898.

I found it useful in reflecting to review the Senate debate regarding An Act to provide for the government of the Yukon District. The debate in this place at that time noted that the act was made as brief as possible to provide for the present government, for the appointment of a commissioner to administer the government, for the appointment of a council to advise and assist — and forgive the language of the day — him in preparation of ordinances for the government and to provide for the administration of justice.

To set the context for you, the Yukon was launched onto the world stage with the discovery of gold in 1896, two years prior to this debate in the Senate. Few are aware that the discovery of gold is mostly credited to a party of three, which included Shaaw Tláa — or Kate Carmack, as she was known — a Tagish First Nation woman; her brother; and her common-law husband. Another side note, dear colleagues — the two men involved in the party of three were inducted into the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame in 1999. Kate Carmack was included in 2019.

Honourable senators, this discovery and the mass influx of those seeking their fortune led to Dawson City, Yukon, becoming the largest city north of San Francisco and west of Chicago by 1897. Many of them crossed the Canada-United States border by climbing the Chilkoot Pass, as seen in that iconic black-and-white photo of a long line of adventurers climbing a steep, snow-clad mountain.

Canada’s response to this influx of people was to assert Canadian sovereignty by posting the North-West Mounted Police on the Chilkoot Pass. The officers did not check passports or rely upon an ArriveCAN app; rather, they ensured that every individual had enough provisions to survive the trip to the goldfields as well as the winter — specifically, 2,000 pounds of provisions.

The influx of this international population to the Yukon was noted, perhaps less than charitably, in the discussion of the Yukon Act in the Senate. The Honourable Mr. Mills stated:

The condition of things is very different in the Yukon country. As I have said, at least 9 out of every 10 of the population are foreigners, to whom the duty of legislating and administering could not be entrusted.

Then, with regard to the few who are British subjects, they are not permanent residents; they have not gone there for the purpose of being domiciled. They have gone there for the purpose of becoming wealthy . . .

That assertion of Canadian sovereignty and the desire to regulate liquor consumption in the territory were the motivations behind the Yukon Act. This principle of asserting Canadian sovereignty though population of the North and support for the North has been the underpinning of Canada’s policy in the North for some time.

Honourable senators, the Yukon Act has been amended rather frequently since those initial debates. As it is the Yukon’s “constitution” and we are celebrating an important milestone, the background to the Yukon Act and the current context in which amendments are considered today — in fact, the Yukon Act was mentioned in the amendments we dealt with in our legislature today — are the reasons for my address to you tonight.

In 1998, on the one hundredth anniversary of the Yukon Act, the Yukon Legislative Assembly, of which I was a part, held a special sitting in the old Territorial Council chambers and passed the Yukon Day Act.

We also celebrate dogs in the Yukon. Even our territorial crest features a husky on its top. An original photo of the first Territorial Council on the steps of the council chamber somehow included a dog. For the celebration of the one hundredth anniversary, we also included a dog.

A treasured memento in my office is the display that includes photos of both the Territorial Council in 1898 and the Yukon Legislative Assembly in 1996, as well as the Yukon Day Act.

An appreciation of this background is key to understanding our current status within Canada and the Yukon framework for moving forward as we work with First Nations to ensure infrastructure for our citizens, develop our natural resources — including strategic critical minerals — engage in the fight against climate change and continue to protect the vast wilderness that has been home to First Nations for millennia.

The one hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary of the Yukon Act affords an opportunity for Yukoners to share their perspective on the changes to the act and our place within today’s Canada, as well as context for the amendments that come before this chamber.

Honourable senators, the first of three key historical matters to reflect upon is the discussion between the Commissioner of the Yukon, the duly elected Territorial Council and the Government of Canada in 1979. The Commissioner’s role since 1898 has been that of Ottawa’s administrator of the territory.

The individual in this role in 1979 was Ione Christensen, who served as Yukon’s senator from 1999 to 2006. In 1966, the Territorial Council — which met in Whitehorse from 1953, when it became the capital — adopted a motion calling for a larger council, provincial status within 12 years and an executive committee with full cabinet powers.

The motion was disallowed. It did, however, lead to negotiations, and eventually, in the 1978 elections, three political parties were elected to a 16-member Legislative Assembly. The Yukon is the only territory that elects its council by political parties.

The changes to Yukon’s governance structure came in the form of a letter from then-Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, the Honourable Jake Epp, to Commissioner Christensen.

He wrote:

. . . I hereby instruct you to accept the advice of the Council in all matters in the said [Yukon] Act which are delegated to the Commissioner in Council, provided that those matters meet the requirements of Section 17 of the said Act and excepting Section 46 of the said Act . . . .

In other words, with that letter, the duly elected members of the Yukon Legislative Assembly started to somewhat become the masters of our own house — albeit without financial means or control over land and resources.

These financial arrangements changed in 1985, when Canada provided the Yukon and the Northwest Territories with Territorial Formula Financing arrangements, which are similar to equalization payments for the provinces.

Honourable senators, the control over land and resources has two key elements: the signing by the Council of Yukon First Nations, the Government of Yukon and the Government of Canada of the Umbrella Final Agreement, the UFA, between the parties in 1993; and the Devolution Transfer Agreement signed in 2001.

Honourable senators are aware the Yukon First Nations are currently in Ottawa celebrating not only the fiftieth anniversary of the presentation of the document entitled Together Today for our Children Tomorrow, but they are also celebrating and working with the enabling self-governing agreements and government-to-government relationships, evidenced today with the Intergovernmental Forum.

It’s unique in this country, and it has given life and meaning to the phrase coined by First Nations — particularly by Kluane Adamek of the Assembly of First Nations — of describing our shared territory as a “Yukon that Leads.”

Yesterday, a trilateral letter of intent was signed “. . . to confirm their commitment to collectively work toward the construction and operation of a Yukon First Nations-led Healing Centre.” That is an agreement between Canada, First Nations and the .

The Yukon was also the first territory to negotiate, with the approval of First Nations, a devolution transfer agreement that gave the Yukon authority over lands and resources, which I signed in 2001. During Senate deliberations about the devolution transfer agreement, the bill that gave force to the devolution agreement in the Yukon Act in 2002, Senator Ione Christensen said:

. . . the Yukon bill recognizes the political realities of the North and the dramatic changes that have taken place since the days of 1979 when responsible government in Yukon was first recognized. Bill C-39 will bring the legislative framework into line with what has been common practice for the last two decades: recognizing the existence of responsible government in Yukon and providing its legislature with the capabilities to operate in much the same fashion as provincial legislative assemblies.

Senators Cordy and Jaffer were present for those changes. The Yukon Act and consequential amendments to other acts come up regularly in this chamber. I thank senators for their support for the Yukon Act.

I would like to speak briefly about the briefings that were undertaken in Ottawa during the devolution transfer agreement. It was my responsibility as a member of the opposition at the time to brief the Bloc Québécois. I reassured them that the amendments to the Yukon Act did not impact the constitutional recognition of Quebec. Yukoners genuinely appreciated the vibrant contribution of the francophone population, particularly because, at that time, Yukon had the fastest-growing francophone population per capita outside of Quebec. That vibrant francophone population has been present since the gold rush days of Madame Tremblay’s Store, which is a national historic site within the UNESCO World Heritage Site that is Tr’ondëk-Klondike, including Dawson City.

This background is very key to understanding how and why critical infrastructure like bridge reconstruction, the building of fibre internet connections and resource developments such as mining of strategic minerals can occur in the Yukon.

I also noted that the Umbrella Final Agreement included provisions for the development assessment process to be overseen by a board composed of Canada, the Yukon First Nations and the Yukon government. The Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Act is the federal legislation for this process.

Earlier in my speech I made reference to Yukon Act as a constitution, with reference to my learned colleagues.

I believe my time is rapidly coming to an end. I’ll be quite brief with this last comment. I would just like to conclude with the remarks of an eminent Yukoner on this subject regarding the Yukon’s place in Canada’s constitution. Pamela Muir, a Yukoner from the University of Edinburgh, in an article based on her 2018 distinction-awarded Master of Law dissertation, wrote the following in her abstract:

. . . This article considers three pillars supporting the normative constitutional status of Yukon. The first is a review of functionality . . . . The second pillar is permanence. . . . The final pillar is sovereignty. . . .

I invite colleagues to read through that abstract in the Northern Review. I would be happy to provide it to you. It is a more detailed examination of the comments I provided today.

Knowledge of this background is key to understanding the relationships between the government of the Yukon, Yukon First Nations and the roles of the Senate, the senator and the Member of Parliament for the Yukon. It’s knowledge necessary for all parliamentarians in relation to the Yukon Act that comes before us daily, it would seem sometimes. It’s an evolving, fascinating history, the story of the Yukon. It is a part of Canadian history that I’m honoured to be a part of and to share with you.

I thank you very much for your patience at this late hour and the opportunity to explore the Yukon Act and the background to my region’s constitution.

I would conclude with a final note from the “bard of the Yukon,” Robert Service, who wrote, as could be said of all of Canada —