Yukoners to be consulted on MLAs’ work

Photo by Whitehorse Star

After serving three terms in the legislature, Todd Hardy is finally getting the movement he wants on legislative reform.

It comes in the form of a select committee, unanimously approved Wednesday in the legislature, which will travel the territory asking Yukoners what changes they would like to see in the way the members of the assembly do business.

“I have been advocating for major changes to how we operate in this legislature since I got here 11 years ago,” Hardy said in a statement shortly after he and his fellow MLAs voted in favour of the New Democrats’ motion to strike the all-party committee.

In introducing the motion, Hardy pointed to declining voter turnout and public apathy about the political process as symptoms of a system of government which “has not kept up to date with our society and the expectations and demands of our society.”

The system is too adversarial, Hardy said, and does not allow for much nonpartisan co-operation.

To make matters worse, Hardy said, politicians have to contend with scandal-hungry media, which, he said, are only looking for the next juicy sound bite.

“We have to improve the way we legislators work together by ... debating in a manner that has thoughtfulness, wisdom and openness to hear the other side, not debating to get your media clip,” he urged.

“... We have to combat apathy; we have to combat poor voter turnout,” Hardy said. “We have to take on this unbelievable disassociation that exists between Yukon people ... and their view of the work we do in here, how they feel we’re all the same, that all we do is bicker and complain and argue, and all the opposition does is try to drag the government down ... and all the government does is try to avoid answering questions.”

The low opinion of politicians and the political process Hardy spoke of is reflected in the territory’s election numbers.

Last month’s Whitehorse municipal contest was decided by just 36.7 per cent of eligible voters.

The last Yukon territorial election in 2006 was vastly better, with 72.9 per cent of eligible voters casting a ballot; however, that number has steadily dropped from a high of 79.58 in 1996.

Yukoners are not alone in their distaste for the polling station. The 2008 general federal election – when just 58.8 per cent of eligible voters cast a ballot – boasted the lowest turnout in Canadian history.

A DataPath Systems poll released last week showed a majority of Yukoners are dissatisfied with the job being done by all three territorial parties. Of all the people polled, a third were undecided on who they would vote for if an election were held today.

Those are troubling numbers, Hardy said, but there is a solution: a concerted effort by legislators to get out into the community – “not just by knocking on doors once every four years,” – in the form of an all-party select committee which will canvass citizens for their ideas about how to make the legislative process more open and credible.

“The committee is going to go out to the people and ask them what they would like to see, which will, of course, open a whole can of worms,” he said. “At least I hope it does,”

He suggested that some changes might include permitting witnesses to appear before standing, special or select committees, as well as fixed legislative sitting dates, a code of ethical conduct for MLAs and education efforts to encourage more public participation in the legislature.

Most important, he said, is for the members of the legislative assembly to directly explain what they are doing in chambers, why they are doing it and asking how they could do it better.

“I know the work that’s done here by all parties and by all individuals. A lot of it is extremely good work. The message is not getting out there; it’s not working. The communication back is not working.”

Although everyone present in the assembly Wednesday voted in favour of the motion (MLAs Marian Horne, Elaine Taylor, Brad Cathers, Steve Nordick, Darius Elias and Steve Cardiff were all absent), Liberal house leader Gary McRobb delivered a note of caution from the clerk of the assembly, Floyd McCormick.

Summarizing an e-mail sent from McCormick, the deputy minister of the legislative assembly, to all the MLAs, McRobb said: “The Yukon Legislative Assembly Office currently has insufficient resources to accommodate members’ decisions to use select committees as suggested by this motion.”

Just last week, four motions calling for select committees were tabled, McCormick said, but the money to run them is not there

“We have, in our 2009-10 budget, $60,000 dedicated to committees,” he wrote. “This would, in our recent experience, be enough to pay the expenses (travel, accommodation, advertising, venue rental, etc.) for one committee or commission that chose to travel the territory as part of its public consultations.”

After a friendly amendment from cabinet minister Jim Kenyon to move the committee’s report due date to the fall of 2011, the motion passed unanimously.