Fentie regime sinks to lowest-ever rating

As the year’s fall sitting started this afternoon, support for the Yukon Party government is at its lowest since Premier Dennis Fentie was elected to lead his second majority three years ago, according to a DataPath Systems poll released Wednesday.

As the year’s fall sitting started this afternoon, support for the Yukon Party government is at its lowest since Premier Dennis Fentie was elected to lead his second majority three years ago, according to a DataPath Systems poll released Wednesday.

Only 25 per cent of decided voters in the territory would pick the Yukon Party, were an election held today, survey results of 309 residents indicate.

This represents a huge decline in popular support for the ruling party that enjoyed approval ratings as high as 46 per cent at the beginning of the year.

Parties on the opposite side of the assembly garnered marginal increases in support, and the Liberals now enjoy their highest approval rating since the 2006 election.

The official Opposition earned a nod from 37 per cent of decided voters. While still in third place, the NDP also jumped three per cent and now trails the beleaguered Yukon Party by just two points.

The number of undecided voters has also jumped, and at 33 per cent they outnumber support for both the NDP and the Yukon Party.

For the first time since DataPath Systems began sampling voters’ preferences in 2001, “poor government” is the number one issue facing the territory, according to the most recent survey’s respondents.

This, combined with the Yukon Party’s sagging approval rating, appears to be the result of the premier’s back room deal-making with Calgary-based ATCO to sell, then privatize, the Yukon Energy Corp. assets.

First revealed last June after four directors of the public utility quit to protest Fentie’s designs, revelations by Brad Cathers after he resigned from the Yukon Party cabinet and caucus in late August confirmed more than two months of speculations and allegations.

But the summer of deception, not the Liberals’ top poll position and the party’s best rating in three years, was buoying Liberal Leader Arthur Mitchell as he prepared to re-enter the legislature.

“The premier spent the summer lying to Yukoners about what has happening at the energy corporation ... the way I see it, the Yukon Party MLAs are all in this together,” Mitchell told the Star this morning.

“So we’re definitely going to put the focus on integrity. Yukoners are looking for a government they can trust and we’re also hearing that only an election can clear the air.”

But the prospect of an election sooner than the next fixed voting date in 2011 is slim, particularly with formerly estranged Yukon Party member John Edzerza’s recent return to the Fentie fold.

After Cathers’ departure from government caucus and cabinet reduced the Yukon Party to a minority government, Mitchell vowed to topple Fentie at the earliest opportunity.

While the premier is again riding high on a renewed majority, Mitchell eased up on rhetoric but promised to push ahead with his motion of non-confidence.

“We believe there should be a record of members endorsing the premier’s lying ways, basically,” Mitchell said.

“It’s important for Yukoners to see who endorses this behaviour and who opposes it.”

As NDP House Leader Steve Cardiff met with counterparts prior to this afternoon’s 1:00 assembly start, former party leader Todd Hardy talked of the NDP’s approach to holding Fentie and company accountable.

“This (Yukon Energy) story has been beaten to death, so our focus is on what is the premier doing doing now. We want him to come clean and we want him to be transparent,” Hardy said.

Yesterday’s appointments to the Yukon Development Corp. board of four directors that Cathers described as “hand-picked by the premier” does not instill any confidence in Hardy that the premier has changed his autocratic tune.

Once again, the NDP plans to reintroduce its legislative renewal bill that, if passed, would start a process to overhaul how legislative politics are conducted in the territory.

“When a government gets into power, the opposition spends the next four years trying to tear them down and that doesn’t work,” Hardy said. “Frankly, we’re operating in a system that’s 200 years old that doesn’t meet the needs of modern times.”

Hardy pointed to the surge in undecided voters in the territory of further evidence the voters are becoming more disenchanted with Yukon politics.

“And does the public believe that who they are electing and the people who are running really are credible?” Hardy said.

Wandering MLAs punctuated the break between spring and fall sittings and Cathers, now the lone independent member following Edzerza’s much-criticized return to the Yukon Party, remains hopeful more defections from the party could transpire.

“Certainly there are deep divisions within the grassroots of the party and there are those not happy with what’s seemingly becoming a one-man show with spectators,” Cathers said

“Nobody knows for sure what the next two years will bring, but I know there are members in caucus who are unhappy with the situation.”

Repeating what he told reporters when he resigned back in August, Cathers said he continues to hear that other Yukon Party MLAs remain disgruntled.

The MLA for Lake Laberge, who took a drubbing from some of his own constituents for giving up his cabinet and caucus post in the ruling party, predicts Fentie will run smoke and mirrors interference to cling to power.

“He’ll try to paint a picture that he’s going to work on how to improve the decision-making or debate in the legislature and that’s not the first time that line has been tried,” Cathers said

“So while he makes an effort to create a rosy picture, in fact there’s not really any change in where the decisions are being made. It’s by the person hunkered down in the corner office or out riding his Harley.”

Calls to the premier for comment for this story were not returned.