The Yukon NDP held its annual convention last Saturday, with labour leaders, special guests and dozens of party members joining the three MLAs at the Mount McIntyre Recreation Centre.

Delegates capped the events with a celebration of party leader Kate White’s five years at the helm.

White’s keynote address echoed Yukon Federation of Labour President Teresa Acheson in highlighting what the NDP calls its “pivotal role in brokering a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the Yukon government and the unions representing health care workers. That occurred shortly before MLAs passed a law to create a territorial health authority.

“We’ve shown time and again that the Yukon NDP listens, and that we bring people to the table,” White said of the MOU. It enshrines YG’s commitment to upholding affected health care workers’ pay, benefits, and/or pensions according to current collective bargaining agreements, among other promises.

“Kate, I will never be able to say thank you enough for your solid stance with workers and unions in those weeks,” Acheson said in her convention speech.

“When workers were feeling frustrated, afraid, unheard, and scared, your words, ‘We continue to stand in solidarity with employees’ allowed them to breath, relax, and have hope for the future,” Acheson added, drawing thunderous applause.

White later presented the NDP’s Judi Johnny Award to Solidarity Whitehorse.

That grassroots association’s volunteers have led public demonstrations in solidarity with the people of Palestine.

MLAs Lane Tredger (Whitehorse Centre) and Annie Blake (Vuntut Gwitchin) held discussion panels on housing and health care.

The special guests were Blake Desjarlais, the federal NDP housing critic and the MP for Edmonton Griesbach, and Janis Irwin, the Alberta NDP housing critic, and MLA for Edmonton-Highlands-Norwood.

Sixty-one people attended the convention 2024, according to signatures collected at the door.

White succeeded former Yukon NDP leader Liz Hanson on May 4, 2019.

The party is funded entirely by personal donations. It does not accept financial contributions from labour unions or industry, according to party policy.

Judi Johnny was a First Nations elder (Gwa’sala-’Nakwaxda’xw Nations) and a passionate advocate for Yukoners living with disabilities. She lived for 25 years with complications of the polio virus, cerebral palsy and arthritis. She died in 2015 in Whitehorse at the age of 65.

Hanson set up the annual Judi Johnny Award shortly after Johnny’s passing.

The award is given by Yukon NDP leaders to Yukoners and/or Yukon associations who work publicly to end discrimination based on race, gender, sexual orientation or physical ability.