Yukon organizations voice concerns of budget interference from territorial government

An opposition party and the public bodies that draw their funding through the Yukon Legislature are raising concerns following changes to their proposed budgets for next year imposed by the territorial government’s Management Board Secretariat. Some are going so far as to call the changes political interference.

Correspondence from late November made public and posted to the Yukon Legislative Assembly website indicates that Elections Yukon, the office of the Yukon Child and Youth Advocate and the Yukon Ombudsman’s office all have concerns about the recent budget changes. 

The budgets of the three offices are approved through the Members’ Services Board, an all-party committee of elected officials that weighs in on budgets overseen by the legislature. In correspondence to the board, Elections Yukon describes $361,000 approved by the board which the Management Board Secretariat is advising the government not to approve when it works on the territory’s upcoming budget. Elections Yukon’s correspondence describes a challenging situation when it comes to fulfilling its expanding mandate without additional support. 

The Yukon Child and Youth Advocate Office (YCAO) went so far as to call the changes to its budget political interference. The office’s letter calls budget reductions arbitrary and states they will lead to uncertainty, disrupted operations and the diminished ability of the YCAO to fulfill its mandate. Dollar figures at stake for YCAO are not included in its letter.

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The board also received a letter from Yukon Ombudsman Jason Pedlar who expressed confusion about why the Management Board Secretariat is involved in the Member Services’ Board’s financial vetting. He requested additional information on its legal ability to do so. Specific monetary amounts are not discussed in Pedlar’s letter. 

Jeremy Harper is both the Liberal Party MLA for Mayo-Tatchun, and the speaker of the house in the Yukon legislature and the chair of the Members’ Services Board. He wrote to finance minister Sandy Silver about the matter on Dec. 19. 

“Members’ Services Board is the only financial oversight body that has a complete understanding of the positions of the house officers, including risks which can harm the ability of those offices to complete the work mandated to them. Management Board will not have this same understanding, and therefore is not fully informed to make adjustments to these estimates,” Harper wrote. 

He suggested the recent management board activities could be seen as interference with organizations whose independence from government is guaranteed.

A Dec. 20 statement from the Yukon Party, who sit as the official Opposition in the legislature, echoes the concerns expressed by the Ombudsman, YCAO and Elections Yukon. 

“The territorial Liberal government is using financial shortages caused by their own wasteful spending as an excuse to interfere with budgets for Elections Yukon, the Child and Youth Advocate, the Ombudsman/Information Privacy Commissioner, and the Legislative Assembly Office, but this political interference is actually illegal,” said Yukon Party justice critic Brad Cathers, quoted in the Dec. 20 statement.

The government’s cabinet communications responded to the matter following questions from the News on Dec. 23. In it, they thank the Member’s Services Board for voicing their concerns but suggest those concerns are premature. 

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“At this stage in the budget-building process, elected officials have not finalized the budget. It is unfortunate that the Yukon Party feels it is appropriate to publicly criticize the work of civil servants, but it is not out of character, given their previous statements in opposition, and actions while in government,” the statement reads. 

Yukon finance minister Sandy Silver replied to Harper on the matter in a Dec. 27 letter. In it, the minister disagrees with Harper framing the Members’ Services Board as the final decision maker on the estimated budgets to be sent off for legislative approval. He draws from Yukon legislation and a 2008 court decision in the reply.

Appended to Silver’s reply is a chart showing a nearly $3.2 million difference between the 2024/25 budget estimates and requests for the coming year for the legislative assembly, Elections Yukon, the ombudsman’s office and the child and youth advocate.

The letter also discusses the freeze of caucus budgets for the remainder of the fiscal year, which Silver states resulted from overspending decisions by the Members’ Services Board. He said supplementary budget increases had been requested due to overspending causing concern going into the next budget. 

“Yukoners expect the Government of Yukon to prepare budgets that reflect their needs and as elected officials, we are all accountable for spending. It is my job, as Minister of Finance to oversee the territory’s spending in a fiscally responsible way on behalf of all Yukoners,” Silver wrote. 

The Yukon’s budget for the coming year is expected to be presented to the legislature in the spring, where it will be voted on. 

Contact Jim Elliot at [email protected]