All of Dawson City, Yukon’s newest town councillors have refused to do something that’s required under territorial legislation: swear an oath of allegiance to the King.
On Tuesday, all five members of council were sworn in to office. Under the Yukon’s Municipal Act, elected town councillors must take the oath of office, and the oath of allegiance to the King.
The act also states council members are required to take the oaths within 40 days of being elected. Failure to do so could result in the election results being null and void, and the office being deemed vacant.
While the all of the councillors swore, or affirmed their oath of office, all five refused to take the oath of allegiance.
Newly elected Mayor Stephen Johnson said the decision to not take the oath was decided among the group prior to being sworn in.
“Early in the morning we all got an email and it was from Darwyn,” Johnson explained. “And he said I’m hesitant to sign on to this basically because of background history with [the] Crown and First Nations in Canada.”
After reading the email, and taking a few minutes to think about it, Johnson chose to back his decision.
Johnson said he then connected with the other council members to see how they felt about it and they agreed to support their fellow councillor as well.
CBC News reached out to councillor Darwyn Lynn for comment but he declined saying he didn’t have much to say on the topic.
‘I think this is a major thing for the Yukon’
According to director of communtiy affairs, Samantha Crosby, this particular situation isn’t very common. She said she’s never heard of all councillors refusing to take the oath of allegiance.
Crosby said she’s been in contact with the councillors to determine the best way forward as she doesn’t want to see a byelection called.
“The requirement to swear or affirm the oaths is in the [municipal] act itself but the prescribed forms are under a regulation within the municipal act,” Crosby said.
“So the language that is within the forms is a regulation and not within the actual legislation. To make changes to legislation is a very long process, but to make changes to a regulation is something that can be done in a much quicker fashion.”
Crosby said her department is considering alternative options around the oath to ensure all council members feel included and respected within the governance structures while still complying to legislative requirements.
She did note that if an alternative could not be reached, and a byelection was called, all of the councillors, including the mayor would no longer hold their seats.
Mayor Johnson said this situation happening right at the start of the new council’s term has sort of set the ground work for how they’ll tackle issues moving forward, granted they can
“I think this is a major thing for the Yukon,” said Johnson. ” Whatever happens, this could be a change in regulation perhaps.”
“Understand too we are not going to agree on everything. We have our own thoughts and experiences. Disagreement is good as long as it’s respectful and you can learn something from that. And if you learn something from it you might be turned around in your thoughts too. So we shall see.”