President Pat McInroy Headquarters Whitehorse, YT | Founded 1991 (1991) | |
 | ||
Leader Stacey Hassard (acting) Preceded by Progressive Conservative Party Ideology Conservatism
Yukon regionalism | ||
The Yukon Party (French: Parti du Yukon) is a conservative political party in Yukon, Canada. It is the successor to the Yukon Progressive Conservative Party.
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Formation
With Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's Progressive Conservative federal government's decreasing popularity, the Yukon Progressive Conservatives decided to sever its relations with the federal Conservatives, and renamed itself the "Yukon Party" prior to the 1992 election.
However, two Progressive Conservative MLAs, Bea Firth and Alan Nordling, quit the party in protest and sat as independent MLAs until 1996. Nordling later returned to the party, and was defeated as a Yukon Party candidate in the 1996 election, while Firth retired from politics.
After seven years in power, the NDP was defeated in 1992 and the Yukon Party's John Ostashek became Premier of Yukon. (Note: Ostashek used the title Government Leader, never Premier.) His government became very unpopular by increasing taxes and cutting services. Ostashek was voted out of office in 1996 after only one term. The Yukon Party won only three seats, falling to third place for the first time behind the Yukon Liberal Party.
Since 2000
The party's fortunes continued to decline at the 2000 general election. The Yukon Party was reduced to a single seat in the legislature as the right wing vote moved to the Yukon Liberal Party, putting the Liberals in power for the first time in the territory's history.
Liberal Premier Pat Duncan's government was plagued with internal dissent, however, and despite having won an outright majority of seats in the general election, defections and resignations reduced the Liberals to a minority government within two years. Premier Duncan called a snap election for 4 November 2002, in an effort to regain her majority, but the early election call backfired.
The Yukon Party had elected Dennis Fentie, a rural Member of the Yukon Legislative Assembly (MLA), who had defected from the NDP, as its new leader in June 2002. Despite being caught by surprise by the election call, the party was able to win a majority government with 12 seats compared to five for the NDP. The Liberals were reduced to a single seat. Fentie became the second Yukon Premier from a rural riding.
On 10 October 2006, the Yukon Party was re-elected, holding 10 seats in the Legislative Assembly. The Yukon Liberals won five seats and the Yukon New Democrats won three.
2011 leadership election
On May 28, 2011, a leadership election was held to replace Dennis Fentie. Darrell Pasloski was chosen after only one ballot.