Ed. note: this submission on the Yukon government’s application to close several unstaffed rural landfills has been sent to the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Board (YESAB).

Bottom line: YESAB should not consider this application from YTG, as they are making it in bad faith.

Everyone’s comments are totally fair, in my opinion. However, what we all have in common is wanting YTG to back off, consult with us and don’t try to sneak around even though they are fully aware of our outrage.

Community Services Minister Richard Mostyn is all proud of having signed agreements with Teslin, Watson Lake and recently Carmacks (Star, July 19).

I know he did not consult with any of the unincorporated surrounding communities.

First, I would like to educate the out-of-touch Yukon government. There are way more than 20 people using the Silver City transfer station and about 100 users in Beaver Creek, and not 354.

Richard Mostyn has been repeating for years that communities who are represented by the Association of Yukon Communities (AYC) have been consulted and that he is responding to their pleading for him to solve the problems with “dump shopping.”

We have repeatedly asked him to tell us which community it was? With an amazing lack of accountability, he refuses to tell us. We know it is not Haines Junction.

Silver City, Canyon, Champagne, Destruction Bay, Burwash, 1118 and Beaver Creek are unincorporated communities. They are not represented by the AYC and not consulted in any decisions made.

I have a letter from the AYC president, Ted Laking, confirming that any consultations between YG and the AYC did not include any of the unincorporated Yukon communities.

Contrary to what YTG would like for people to believe, they have never consulted with us at all.

Richard Mostyn came to Destruction Bay once to tell us “there will be no consultation.”

In attendance at that meeting were more than 30 Kluane Lake region residents. Our MLA and the Yukon Party leader were also here to show their support.

Richard Mostyn was here with three other YTG employees.

In addition to “there will be no consultation,” we were told that YTG had to control the garbage, stop dump shopping, protect the environment, and close the free stores, as “it’s all junk in there,” and introduce tipping fees, etc.

Richard Mostyn and the other employees never gave us the justification for any of it.

We brought forward easy and cost-effective ways of solving these problems, such as issuing permits for local residents in the Kluane Lake Region to use the dump in Destruction Bay to control and stop dump shopping, as this is a manned facility.

We suggested adding a gate and lock to the Silver City transfer station and let local users manage it on our own at no cost to YTG.

These were common-sense, environmentally-friendly and cost-efficient solutions.

YTG representatives, led by Richard Mostyn, refused to listen and work with us.

We, Kluane Lake region residents, in a petition signed by over 110 residents, asked Richard Mostyn to work with us.

We tried to make him understand how disruptive his ideas were for us in our daily lives, or we asked him to resign, as we believe he should be working with and for us.

He ignored and dismissed our petition, and used it as a political stunt in the newspaper, saying the leader of the Yukon Party asked him to resign. That was not true.

The steel bins that the garbage goes in prevent, by keeping the garbage contained, from contaminating the ground.

Richard Mostyn is saying that we are wrong by thinking that. But he will not provide proof to us that in fact, that is a pollution problem.

If this method of disposing of garbage is so bad, why did YTG approve Nickel Shaw, mining/exploration, to have the exact same electric fencing and steel bin set up to dispose of their garbage at their Quill Creek site? I have pictures.

As Bruce Williams stated in his comments, adding the transfer station at Silver City – and I am suspecting all other transfer stations throughout the Yukon – was YTG’s solution to stop people from accumulating garbage, burning garbage and shooting nuisance bears as a result.

That has proved to be a good solution to a bad problem. Now YTG is wanting to take away the solution, and this will, no doubt, bring back the problem.

Recently, a Yukon man was heavily fined for the improper storing of garbage and endangering wildlife, and previously, conservation officers had had to shoot three bears as a result.

By forcing Yukon residents to accumulate garbage on their properties again, will YTG accept the liability when conservation officers are forced to shoot a higher number of nuisance bears?

Has anyone consulted with the conservation officers?

Has anyone consulted with the Parks Canada officers?

Will YTG be liable when our children, grandchildren and pets start encountering habituated bears and other wild animals?

At the Talbot Arm, we collect two to four 42 x 48 tourism-produced garbage bags per day from May to September, and at least two of those bags off-season.

I buy the garbage bags, pay the staff to maintain the garbage bins and we clean up the ditches. All this garbage is not local garbage. It is generated by tourists.

Does YTG think that I will continue to collect all this garbage if I have to pay to dispose of it?

I will not. Where is all this garbage going to end up?

I have spoken to several employees of the Department of Environment, Parks Canada and Tourism and Culture.

Everyone agrees that it is a bad idea to force people to accumulate and store garbage anywhere in the Yukon, but especially in the Kluane Lake region, where there is a huge bear population.

We, as a community, tried to ask Ranj Pillai, when he was minister of Tourism, his stand on the impact on tourism.

He chose to ignore our request, and the minister of Environment also did not respond.

We wrote to the premier, Sandy Silver; he did not respond. Instead, he forwarded our letter to Richard Mostyn for response. No accountability ... shameful!

YTG has already proved it is not accountable to rural Yukon and will not honour the 2023 Confidence and Supply Agreement.

In it, the government did commit to:

“6.D – Consult with communities to determine household waste disposal options in Keno, Johnson’s Crossing, Silver City and Braeburn;

Consult with the community, as committed to in the 2023 Confidence and Supply Agreement; and

Determine household waste disposal options, as committed to in the 2023 Confidence and Supply Agreement.

If YESAB goes ahead and approves this project, there would be no incentive for YTG’s minister of Community Services, Richard Mostyn, to consult with us.

As a result, Yukon Government would proceed with the closure of Silver City and impose tipping fees and create a problem where there isn’t one.

I do not believe and I do not trust the minister of Community Services, Richard Mostyn.

And, by their silence, the premier and other ministers are complicit.

Suzanne Tremblay

Destruction Bay

Silver City