FENTIE CANNOT BE TRUSTED
Dennis Fentie has been caught in another contradiction, raising serious questions about his credibility on recent matters of public concern, says NDP leader Todd Hardy.
"When you have the premier phoning the deputy Environment minister in March to angrily complain about the department’s 22-page submission to the Peel Watershed Land Use Planning Commission, and then the department waters down and reduces the document it sends to the board to four pages, I would call that blatant interference," Hardy says. "Nobody should believe this premier. He says one thing and does another, and he seems to do it regularly."
On May 6, in response to a question in the legislature on the Peel Watershed land use planning process, Fentie emphatically promised "the government has not and will not interfere in that duly mandated process."
In Friday’s article in the Yukon News, however, the paper used e-mails and internal documents obtained through the territory’s Access to Information legislation to show Fentie directly interfered in the process and lied about it later.
But this is not the only example of him caught meddling in a process that is supposed to be at arm’s length from government, just the latest, adds Hardy.
"The former chair of the Yukon Development and Energy corporations accuses the premier of holding secret talks with a private company behind the backs of the publicly appointed directors of these boards. This is highly unusual and highly irregular, and once again, he is sticking his nose where it does not belong. The board must be allowed to do its work independent from government interference."
When someone as knowledgeable and respected as Willard Phelps says Fentie is moving to privatize the YEC, all Yukoners should pay close attention and take with a grain of salt the very little the premier has said publicly on this issue.
"Fentie cannot be trusted," Hardy says. "He has shown us again and again in recent months that his words do not match his actions. What he says and what he does rarely coincide. Once again, I ask the premier to come clean with the public about this plans for YDC/YEC."