Great question! Please download, print and post our poster prominently in your community. Fantastic locations are your local store or gas station, municipal office, First Nations government building, school, YukonU campus, or community noticeboard.

Assembly members are private citizens participating in an act of public service, much like those selected for jury duty. Like a jury, members are not expected to conduct education and outreach, either before or after, making their recommendation.

Extensive public engagement and public hearings on this topic took place between 2021 and 2023 led by the Special Committee on Electoral Reform. All the 2021-23 public engagement has been made available to assembly members.

All the information provided by Professor Jonathan Rose at the June 8-9 Gathering is available within the Second Gathering Learning Sessions.

This includes:

• an overview of electoral system elements
• Single Member Plurality system (First Past the Post)
• List Proportional Representation
• Mixed systems (Mixed Member Proportional and Parallel)
• Single Transferable Vote
• Majority systems (Alternative Vote)

If the Yukon Citizen’s Assembly recommends an alternate electoral system, the Yukon Legislature will determine next steps, including whether a public vote (referendum) will take place so Yukoners can decide on adopting a new voting system or retaining the current model.

As such, please address any concerns you have about this to your local MLA, as it is beyond the purview of the Assembly.

Citizens’ Assembly is a body of citizens who come together to deliberate on a given issue and provide a set of recommendations, options, or a collective decision to the convening body, which in this case is the Yukon Legislative Assembly. The rationale underpinning a Citizens’ Assembly is that a group of randomly selected citizens, when given the information, resources and time to deliberate on a given topic, can produce an informed public judgement.

We are not sharing the names of the members until further into the process. Assembly members have agreed to participate in a learning and deliberative process.

They are private citizens participating in an act of public service, much like those selected for jury duty. They are not direct representatives like MLAs and MPs.

It is important that their privacy be protected, especially at the beginning of this journey.

On May 26, 2021, the Special Committee on Electoral Reform was established by Order of the Legislative Assembly. The Committee consisted of MLAs, Kate White (chair), Brad Cathers (vice-chair) and the Hon. John Streicker. Following hearings with expert witnesses and community hearings throughout the Yukon, the Committee delivered itsfinal report on April 24, 2023. Commitee minutes, submissions, public hearings, information on options for Yukon’s electoral system, and final report can be found on the Special Committee on Electoral Reform webpage.

On April 25, 2023, the Yukon Legislative Assembly established the Special Committee on the Yukon Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform. The Committee consisted of MLAs, Kate White (chair), Currie Dixon, and the Hon. John Streicker. This committee’s report was presented to the Legislative Assembly on October 31, 2023, recommending the terms of reference for the Yukon Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform. Commitee minutes and final report can be found on the Special Committee on the Yukon Citizen’s Assembly on Electoral Reform webpage.

The Yukon Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform is a representative body of Yukoners established to recommend a model for electing Members of the Yukon Legislative Assembly.

Mandate:
The Yukon Citizens’ Assembly (YCA) shall examine electoral systems and issue a report recommending whether the current model should be retained or another model should be adopted.

Criteria:

• Decisions of the YCA shall be made by a majority of members present; although consensus is encouraged as a goal.
• The YCA’s decision on voting systems must reflect the importance of balance for rural and urban representation.
• The YCA’s recommended model must be consistent with both the Constitution of Canada and the Canadian parliamentary system.
• If the YCA recommends adopting a model that is different from the current model, it must recommend only one such model and provide a detailed description and explanation of the proposed new electoral system in its final report.

Sara McPhee-Knowles has been appointed Chair of the Yukon Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform. Sara McPhee-Knowles has a PhD in Philosophy specializing in Public Policy from the University of Saskatchewan. She has been seconded from her position as an Assistant Professor from the School of Business and Leadership at Yukon University. She is also an Adjunct Professor, Johnson-Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy, University of Saskatchewan. As Chair, Dr. McPhee-Knowles has administrative responsibility for the Citizens’ Assembly and is not a voting member. Her duties include supervising the selection process for the membership of the Citizens’ Assembly. (See detailed position description)

No. That is a separate process handled by the Electoral District Boundaries Commission with Elections Yukon. They are conducting public hearings thsi summer and seeking feedback from Yukoners on their interim report until August 26, 2024.
Visit their website for more information.

As per the Yukon Citizens’ Assembly’s terms of reference, members will be “selected randomly from the 1,793 respondents who declared their willingness to participate on the YCA in the census of all Yukon residents aged 16 years and over conducted by the Yukon Bureau of Statistics from January 12 to March 5, 2023.”

Membership of the Citizen’s Assembly will consist of up to two individuals from each of the 19 electoral districts in the Yukon.

The Yukon Bureau of Statistics will be completing the random selection from the pool of respondents. Their representation model covers age, gender, and Indigenous ancestry. Per the terms of reference, there will be up to two members from each of the electoral districts, which allows for broad geographic representation. One alternate member per electoral district will be identified in case of attrition from the YCA.

The draft program is being developed. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) best practices for deliberative processes recommend a minimum of four in person meeting days; we are planning eight in-person meeting days. Citizens’ assemblies are learning processes that lead to deliberation, and the program is being developed with this in mind.

Gatherings will be held in Whitehorse with one gathering day held in Carcross. Learning sessions will be open to the public via Zoom, and the schedule of those sessions will be posted on the homepage. Recordings will be posted under the Resources tab above.

At each of the four planned two-day gatherings, there will be learning sessions for members to absorb information on the types of voting systems in use in democracies around the globe, and deliberative sessions for members to discuss what they have learned. The learning sessions will be open to the public. The deliberative sessions will be for Assembly members only. Learn more via the How this works page.

Given the broad scope of public hearings already conducted by the Special Committee on Electoral Reform and the time constraints placed on the YCA, it is unlikely.

Members of the public may make submissions to the YCA via the submissions page. All submissions are posted below the form and will be shared with the YCA at the Aug 26-25 Gathering.

Yes. Learning Sessions, key documents and links are available for review on our website under the Resources tab.

Assembly members will also have access to all the information compiled by the Special Committee on Electoral Reform, which consulted extensively with experts from across Canada and internationally.

The Yukon Citizens’ Assembly is independent and arms-length from government. We are guided by best practices for deliberative processes from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and from Citizens’ Assembly processes that have occurred in BC and Ontario.

To ensure our independence and a fair and transparent process, we are setting up an advisory and oversight group. This committee will be responsible for providing advice to the Chair and Deputy Chair, reviewing the program to ensure that the breadth of experts is sufficient, and to provide a dispute resolution mechanism if necessary.

If you have additional information that you would like to share with us, please use the submissions page on this website. We are accepting submissions until 12:01 AM on Monday August 12, 2024.

All submissions can be reviewed by scrolling down beneath the submissions form. All submissions will be shared with the YCA at the August 24-25 Gathering. 

As per the Yukon Citizens’ Assembly terms of reference, “Decisions of the YCA shall be made by a majority of members present, although consensus is encouraged as a goal. The YCA’s decision on voting systems must reflect the importance of balance for rural and urban representation. The YCA’s recommended model must be consistent with both the Constitution of Canada and the Canadian parliamentary system. If the YCA recommends adopting a model that is different from the current model, it must recommend only one such model and provide a detailed description and explanation of the proposed new electoral system in its final report.”

At the conclusion of its learning and deliberations on electoral systems, the Citizens’ Assembly will issue a report by October 31, 2024, recommending whether the current voting system should be retained, or another model should be adopted.

If the recommendation is for an alternate electoral system, the Legislature will determine next steps, including whether a public vote will take place so Yukoners can decide on adopting a new voting system or retaining the current model.

The Citizens’ Assembly has a finite timeline. After the Assembly has tabled its final report and recommendation, it will be dissolved.

This decision is  not within the mandate or purview of the Citizens’ Assembly. The Legislature will determine next steps.

yukoncitizensassembly.ca is the best source for news and updates on the Citizen’s Assembly. It will include all the materials that are given to the Citizens’ Assembly members. We will also communicate regularly with the Yukon public via local media.

Sign up for our email newsletter on the home or contact page! This semi-regular communication will share what’s new, plus highlight upcoming events and how you can register for a zoom link or view recordings and transcripts. Expect to receive this once per week until mid-June, less frequently across the summer, and weekly once more from mid-Aug to mid-Sept.