‘I’m happy with the common ground’: Pillai
A renewed agreement between the Liberal government and the NDP sets out initiatives to ban evictions without cause, allow free transit for Whitehorse residents, and build the territory’s only walk-in health clinic.
A renewed agreement between the Liberal government and the NDP sets out initiatives to ban evictions without cause, allow free transit for Whitehorse residents, and build the territory’s only walk-in health clinic.
The renewed Confidence and Supply Agreement (CASA) also ensures the government has enough support in the legislature to avoid an election by November 2025. It outlines 33 initiatives.
In the meantime, the third party will be able to more easily advance the legislative and policy initiatives outlined in the agreement.
Leaders of both parties, Premier Ranj Pillai and the NDP’s Kate White, signed the extension to the CASA at an announcement Tuesday morning in downtown Whitehorse. The original CASA expired yesterday.
“By working together over the past two years, we’ve made progress on multiple fronts,” Pillai said at Tuesday’s press conference.
He listed previous CASA achievements such as a territorial dental plan announced in December 2022 and promotion of the Clean Energy Act.
“We recognize there is still work to be done, and we remain committed to working together to improve the lives of all Yukoners,” Pillai said. “I’m very happy with the common ground we’ve found.”
The initiatives included in the CASA, Pillai said, cover areas where the Liberal and NDP platforms partially overlapped: housing, education, health care, affordability, the environment and reconciliation with indigenous Yukoners.
Guidelines and initiatives from the CASA 2021 remain in place.
For example, the $15.70 hourly minimum wage will continue to rise annually based on the Whitehorse Consumer Price Index (CPI).
The rental price brake will also remain in place, albeit modified.
Landlords will still be limited to increasing their rent annually based on the CPI, but that increase will be capped at a minimum of 2 percent and a maximum of 5 percent. (The minimum number applies in the event that the CPI falls below this number.)
More broadly, the new CASA has committed the government to ending evictions without cause – an illegal practice everywhere in the country except Newfoundland and Labrador – and reviewing the Residential Landlord and Tenant Act.
“We need to modernize this law,” Pillai said, adding that balanced protections for landlords and tenants are essential.
Access to healthcare is another focus.
The two parties have committed to building a walk-in health clinic in Whitehorse before January 2024. The area is currently without a walk-in clinic.
Because the Yukon’s waiting list for a family doctor runs in the thousands, many Yukoners currently have no access to primary health care outside of hospital emergency rooms.
“I hear from Yukoners who spend hours in the emergency room getting a prescription renewed,” White said. “I know that if we keep working together, we can do better.”
The government had pledged to open a walk-in clinic in Whitehorse last spring, but finding doctors proved a challenge, and the facility never materialized.
This project was just another indicator of how difficult it was for the area to recruit and retain doctors and nurses, something the new CASA also addresses.
The next three budgets will spend $2 million annually recruiting and retaining healthcare professionals.
Recruitment has also been an issue in rural education, resulting in $1 million spent annually over the next three years recruiting and retaining educators.
The government will also work to cover the costs of fertility treatments and surrogacy.
The agreement focuses on making life more affordable for Yukoners as well.
The Territory will fund the City of Whitehorse to make public transportation there free.
Although details of this funding are not yet available, the operating budget for Whitehorse Transit Services has consistently been just under $1.5 million per year since 2019.
Further financial relief is included.
The Yukon child benefit rate will increase annually based on inflation.
Those on welfare receive a $100 monthly increase until a broader increase in welfare rates is in effect after a review.
Investing in renewable energy and implementing updated mining laws developed in partnership with Yukon First Nations communities are also initiatives outlined in the new CASA.
“The Expanded Trust and Supply Agreement will once again enable strong, stable leadership to address the challenges facing Yukoners,” Pillai told reporters at the Jim Smith Building.
He said housing, affordability, the environment, access to health care and education, and reconciliation are the top priorities set out in the agreement.
“Under the leadership of Kate White, the NDP has shown a willingness to work with our government to improve the lives of Yukoners,” the prime minister said.
The two parties first signed an agreement after the April 2021 election, which saw the Liberals lose their majority in the legislature and tie the eight-seat Yukon Party to it.
The deal allowed the Liberals to form a minority government without fear of a no-confidence vote toppling them.
In turn, the NDP, with state support, has pushed policies and initiatives that have resulted in the territory’s new dental plan, rent caps, and a supervised consumption facility in downtown Whitehorse for Yukoners struggling with drug problems.
“Since my first election (in 2011), my priority has been to put Yukoners at the center of my work and to put them at the center of my decisions,” White said.
“We’re very proud of what we’ve been able to achieve here, and we’re proud of what it will mean for the Yukoners.”
Yukon Party leader Currie Dixon said Tuesday the Liberal government has traded its political platform for power by signing another deal with the NDP. He said in an interview that Pillai must seek his own mandate from the Yukonans and call general elections. (See separate story, p. 3.)
Pillai has said Yukoners want “stability” and he will not call a general election before the government’s current mandate ends in 2025.
The new CASA went into effect immediately on Tuesday and will expire when an election is called in spring 2025 following the approval of the 2025-26 budget. General elections must be held in November this year.
While similar, CASA is not the same as a coalition government, a term Dixon has used in the past.
Beyond the initiatives outlined in the CASA, each party will pursue its own legislative agenda.
“I think aside from partisan politics, at the end of the day most Yukoners are like, ‘Can you guys just work together for us?'” Pillai said.
“It’s not happening a lot, it certainly hasn’t happened a lot in the last few decades, but it’s happened in the last two years and it’s happening now.”
The federal NDP and the Liberals currently have a similar rule.
The Yukon Agreement served as a model, said NDP boss Jagmeet Singh in 2022.
