Once again, Justice Minister Tracy-Anne McPhee is being called onto the carpet.

A letter from Dawson City resident Elise McCormick was tabled in the legislature on Monday by Opposition Leader Currie Dixon.

It claims the appearance of a conflict of interest related to incidents involving disabled students when McPhee was the minister of Education from 2016 to 2021.

Yukon Party MLA Brad Cathers said Wednesday, “Earlier this week, the premier received a letter from a Yukoner entitled ‘Apparent Conflict of Interest for the Attorney General of the Yukon’.

“In that letter, the question was raised to the premier about whether the minister of Justice is in a conflict situation due to a legal action being taken against the government in relation to her conduct and the actions of a government department that was under her leadership as minister.

“Can the premier tell Yukoners how he intends to respond to that letter?” Cathers asked.

In part, Premier Ranj Pillai stated that Cathers had the right to file a complaint with the Conflicts of Interest Commissioner, David Jones.

McCormick’s letter states, “The Hon. Tracy-Anne McPhee, as former head of the Department of Education, is accused of breaching the duties imposed on her as minister with respect to disabled students, including:

Failure to issue guidelines and standards for the implementation of special education;

Complete lack of oversight, e.g., allowing the practice of holds, restraints, and seclusion;

Failure to prevent, reduce, or control the risk of harm to students, e.g., sexualized abuse;

Administering policy in a manner that violates the dignity and liberty interests of students.”

The letter states, “The guardians of many students brought these matters before the Supreme Court of Yukon. As Attorney General, Minister McPhee is now charged with superintending the litigation.”

The letter also pointed out indicators of the appearance of a conflict of interest by McPhee:

“• Neglect in issuing legal hold notices and of the duty to preserve needed evidence;

• Failure to observe the ‘respectable legal argument’ threshold when contesting relief;

• Oppressive breach of open access provisions under access to information legislation such that individual litigants are forced to expend time and resources in discovery to obtain government records they are ostensibly entitled to as members of the public;

• Refusal to identify herself or her deputy minister as custodians of relevant documents;

• Abject under-resourcing and improper delegation of documentary disclosure duties.”

The letter then referred to a motion passed on Oct. 27, 2021 demanding McPhee resign over her handling of a sexual assault case at Hidden Valley Elementary School while she was the minister of Education.

“When a minister breaches their legal obligations, they should be held to account, yet your party demonstrated its contempt for the will of the House and its capacity to ignore convention after a majority of the assembly moved for the resignation of minister McPhee from cabinet in October 2021.”

The letter concluded, “Should you refuse to address this concern, I fear your cabinet will be renowned as one prepared to exert the influence of public office merely to retain power at any cost.

“For the sake of the public, including the disabled children whose rights deserve vindication, I hope to hear from you.”

Dixon told reporters Wednesday that according to the letter, there is the “perception of a conflict of interest between the minister of Justice addressing a legal case about her own conduct as minister of Education, and that of her department when it was under her leadership.

“It’s within the purview of the minister of Justice to release advice from the conflicts commissioner if she’s received it. So, if she has received that advice, we would encourage her to release it, and that’s what the letter requested as well,” Dixon said.

“To clear the air and let us know if Mr. Jones has provided some advice to the minister of Justice around whether or not there is a real or perceived conflict in relation to those court cases.”

Dixon said he hasn’t filed a complaint and was not sure if he would.

“If the government releases advice from the conflicts commissioner, then we wouldn’t need to. If they choose not to, then we may look at that avenue, or we could look at one of the other independent officers in the legislature to weigh in on that matter as well.

“The minister who’s seeking the advice of the conflicts commissioner’s fully within her rights to release any advice that she’s received that will potentially eliminate any perception of a conflict of interest,” Dixon noted.

“If Mr. Jones were to weigh in and suggest that there is no conflict of interest in this case, then, we would all move on.

“But the premier saying that the proper course of action is to seek the advice of the conflict commissioner, and then refusing to say whether or not she has sought that advice, and if she will release that advice, only adds more uncertainty to the situation.”

Dixon was asked if he’d like to see a statement from McPhee.

“Absolutely,” he replied. “I think that letter deserves a response – and we didn’t get one today in the legislature.”

Pillai told reporters, “We take that very seriously, and that’s where we’re focused on: making sure that the Justice department will go through it. We always take the necessary steps like, if it has to go to the conflicts commissioner, it’ll go to the conflicts commissioner.”

Pillai added, “We’ll find out this week, we’ll get the department to give us appropriate feedback on it.”

Pillai also stood up for the integrity of his minister, who, he said, “has always filed disclosure statements on time, has always done the right things when you have to be accountable to the public.”

He added, “We’ll get feedback this week, and we’ll take the appropriate steps.”

Pillai explained where the process is at.

“It goes over to the Department of Justice, and we get them to go through it and make sure just to analyze what’s there and then they’ll come back and have some discussions with our teams.”

Regarding taking it to the conflicts commissioner, Pillai said, “In most cases, we just do that; it’s just best to go that direction.”

Pillai said it’s up to each individual whether to seek Jones’ advice.

“We have to take every single interaction with the public like this in a respectful manner and seriously, and that’s absolutely what we’re doing and will continue to do.”

Pillai also pointed out that McPhee excused herself from this month’s coroner’s inquest regarding four deaths at the Whitehorse Emergency Shelter due to a potential conflict of interest.

“The minister is always aware of these things. And is always erring on the side of caution, and always making sure that they do the right thing.”

Asked if he expects McPhee to make a statement regarding the matter, Pillai replied, “We have to do disclosures every year annually, each spring, and nobody makes any statements.

“I assume there’ll be more questions in the future and we’ll make sure that we’re here to answer those appropriately and with the information that we should be providing.”

Given the nature of the complaint, Pillai agreed, this could be seen as more serious than the usual conflict of interest.

“This is a very sensitive subject. There’s a lot of people that have been affected around this topic. I think you’ve got to be very respectful as we go through the process.”