Letter to the Editor

CPAWS-Yukon questions Premier Fentie's link between employment growth and suspension of YPAS

Premier Fentie was quoted in the media as saying that the recent positive news in employment growth was due in part to his government's decision to abandon the Yukon Protected Areas Strategy (YPAS). What evidence does the Premier have to support his statement?

The Yukon government's own data do not support the Premier. The Yukon Bureau of Statistics, the government agency that produced the report on employment, claims that 67% of the new jobs were created not by mining, forestry or oil and gas companies, but by governments – federal, territorial, First Nations and municipal governments. How axing the Yukon Protected Areas Strategy contributed to growth in government jobs is unclear.

What these data do show is that governments can simply boost employment by spending taxpayer's money, a time-honoured technique of Keynesian economists as well as floundering politicians. Whether this spending is sustainable is another question.

What about the other 33% of the jobs? The data do not indicate what types of businesses created these jobs, but if we look at some obvious sectors we can get an idea of what is going on. We assume that the Premier cancelled progress on conservation in the territory to kowtow to the resource extraction sector. But the post-YPAS evidence does not portray this sector as a major engine of growth. In fact, its contribution to job growth in this period was likely negligible or even negative.

There are no operating mines in the territory. In December 2003 the CanTung Mine in NWT went bust – surprise, surprise – in spite of subsidies (for example, around $10,000 per job just for road upgrades and maintenance) from the Yukon government. The mining company caused hardship for Yukoners formerly employed at the mine and for Watson Lake businesses by reneging on its contracts with business people like Tim Nehring. In February 2004 Devon Canada Corporation announced that it would hire 1 or 2 Yukoners (out of a total work force of 30) to work on its Kotaneelee project. In March 2004, the seismic program the government funded in the Carmacks area employed few Yukoners, and apparently, no local people.

Yet job growth increased in the territory over the past year. What is going on? Perhaps resource extraction isn't really doing much for us after all. Could our economy be shifting?

But the new private sector jobs are still unexplained. Is some of this increase a trickle-down effect associated with increased public spending and a larger government workforce? Where are the newly employed Yukoners spending their salaries? Since they are not buying zinc from Faro, raw logs from Watson Lake or natural gas from Kotaneelee, perhaps they are spending some of their income in Whitehorse businesses.

We have seen a boom in big box stores. Undoubtedly these big box stores have had an effect on job growth during the March 2003 to March 2004 period. While this boost in employment rates is favourable in the short-term, over the long-term we may simply be trading jobs at local businesses for jobs at big box stores. The recent announcement by Horwood's that it will shut its doors following the opening of Staples may foreshadow a disturbing trend – locally owned downtown businesses shutting down while big box stores gobble up their trade.

But, what about the Premier's statement linking his decision to axe YPAS with job growth? Well, it seems to be the hollow rhetoric of an ideologue. Why would the Premier make such unsupportable statements? Is it an attempt to rationalize his government's regressive decision on protected areas and to blow smoke over their woeful conservation record? Is he trying to bamboozle Yukoners, the majority of whom support protected areas and conservation?

We challenge Premier Fentie to produce the data supporting his case. If he cannot, then he should be more careful in linking cause with effect.

Jim Pojar
Executive Director, CPAWS-Yukon