Yukon, YT — 2008 Federal Election Results Map

Yukon

One member of Parliament represented the whole of Yukon, some 482,000 square kilometres of mountain, boreal forest and river valley bounded by Alaska, British Columbia and the Northwest Territories. The 2006 census counted 30,372 residents, roughly two-thirds of them in Whitehorse. The remainder were spread among Dawson City, Watson Lake, Haines Junction, Faro, Mayo and Carmacks, along with Old Crow, which has no road to it at all.

Candidates

Larry Bagnell (Liberal) — Bagnell had held the territory for the Liberals since 2000 and was seeking a fourth term. Born in 1949, he came north with arts and science degrees from the University of Toronto and spent his working life in public administration and community organisations, leading the Association of Yukon Communities and later running Industry Canada's territorial office. After the 2006 election he was named his party's critic for northern affairs and carried that file through the Parliament that followed.

Darrell Pasloski (Conservative) — Pasloski qualified in pharmacy at the University of Saskatchewan and came to Whitehorse in 1991, taking over the Shoppers Drug Mart at Qwanlin Mall and later buying a second store on Main Street. He was active in the territory's business community. This was his first campaign for public office.

John Streicker (Green) — Streicker lived at Marsh Lake, where he served as recreation director at the community centre, and wrote a column for the Whitehorse Star. A professional engineer, he studied science at the University of Saskatchewan and took a master's in engineering at the University of New Brunswick, and lectured on climate change around the territory. It was his first federal campaign.

Ken Bolton (NDP) — Bolton, a retired Whitehorse resident, stood for the New Democrats in a territory the party had held federally as recently as 2000.

About the Riding

Yukon's federal seat has moved between traditions rather than settling into one. Erik Nielsen held it for the Progressive Conservatives for thirty years and rose to deputy prime minister; Audrey McLaughlin took it for the New Democrats in a 1987 by-election and led the federal party from 1989 to 1995; Louise Hardy kept it for the NDP in 1997; Bagnell brought it back to the Liberals in 2000.

Government at all three levels — federal, territorial and First Nation — was the largest employer, a structure reinforced by the devolution transfer that on 1 April 2003 handed Ottawa's control over Yukon land and resources to the territorial government. Eleven of the fourteen Yukon First Nations had concluded land claim and self-government agreements under the 1993 Umbrella Final Agreement, giving them a formal role in resource decisions.

Mining had come back. Exploration spending climbed from roughly $8 million in 2002 to more than $80 million in 2006, and the Minto copper-gold mine near Pelly Crossing reached commercial production on 1 October 2007, adding a couple of hundred jobs. The counter-example sat at Faro, where an open-pit lead-zinc operation that at its peak generated more than 30% of the territory's economic activity went into bankruptcy in 1998, leaving one of the largest and costliest contaminated sites on the federal books. Tourism filled the summers, drawing highway travellers, Klondike visitors to Dawson City, hikers into Kluane National Park and cruise passengers coming over the White Pass from Skagway.

Distance shaped the campaign as much as any national theme. Fuel, freight and heating costs ran well above southern levels, and candidates covered a territory the size of a small country in five weeks. Federal infrastructure spending, contaminated-site cleanups and the pace of resource permitting were the practical questions put to them at community meetings.