Commissioner of Yukon facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Commissioner of Yukon
Flag of the Commissioner of Yukon
Badge of the Commissioner of Yukon
Incumbent Adeline Webber since 31 May 2023
Style	The Honourable
Inaugural holder	James Morrow Walsh
Formation	August 17, 1897

The commissioner of Yukon (French: Commissaire du Yukon) is the representative of the Government of Canada in the Canadian federal territory of Yukon. The commissioner is appointed by the federal government and, in contrast to the governor general of Canada or the lieutenant governors of the Canadian provinces, is not a viceroy and therefore not a direct representative of the Canadian monarch in the territory eo ipso.

List of commissioners

Commissioners (1894–1918)

Before the Yukon became a Territory on June 13, 1898, the Dominion agent/gold commissioner (Constantine and Fawcett) and the chief executive officer of the Yukon (Walsh for the first part of his term) was the Yukon representative.

No.	Image	Commissioner	Term start	Term end
1		Inspector Charles Constantine	May 26, 1894	May 27, 1897
2		Thomas Fawcett	May 27, 1897	August 17, 1897
3		James Morrow Walsh	August 17, 1897	July 4, 1898
4		William Ogilvie	July 4, 1898	March 11, 1901
5		James Hamilton Ross	March 11, 1901	October 16, 1902
6		Henry William Newlands (Acting)	February 8, 1902	August 15, 1902
7		Zachary Taylor Wood (Acting)	August 15, 1902	March 4, 1903
8		Frederick Tennyson Congdon	March 4, 1903	October 27, 1904
9		Zachary Taylor Wood (Acting)	October 29, 1904	May 27, 1905
10		William Wallace Burns McInnes	May 27, 1905	December 31, 1906
11		John T. Lithgow (Acting)	December 31, 1906	June 17, 1907
12		Alexander Henderson	June 17, 1907	June 1, 1911
13		Arthur Wilson (Administrator)	June 1, 1911	February 1, 1912
14		George Black	February 1, 1912	April 1, 1918
15		George Norris Williams (Administrator while Black fought in WWI)	October 13, 1916	April 1, 1918

Gold commissioners

The offices of Commissioner and Administrator were abolished in 1918. Office replaced by the Gold Commissioner who was responsible to the federal Minister of the Interior (and since 1936 the Minister of Mines and Resources). Gosselin was not a Commissioner

Comptrollers

The positions of Gold Commissioner and Comptroller were combined in 1932 with the Comptroller being the title for the chief executive. The title was changed to "Controller" in 1936.

Commissioners (1948–present)

In 1948, the title of chief executive once again became Commissioner. By the 1960s, the Commissioner had formed an executive committee that included some members of the elected Territorial Council, in essence a cabinet. (By the mid-1970s, the Territorial Council was referring to itself as a Legislative Assembly, and its members MLAs rather than Councillors.) Beginning in 1978, Yukon had party government with a Government Leader.

In October 1979, federal minister Jake Epp (Indian Affairs and Northern Development) issued a letter, often known as the Epp letter, instructing the Commissioner to assume a role similar to that of a provincial Lieutenant-Governor, and devolving leadership of the day-to-day government to the majority leader of the legislative assembly (territorial council), to whom the Epp letter granted the authority to use the title Premier. At that time, the government leader added a fifth elected member to the committee, which became an executive council.

Subsequent federal ministers did not revoke this authority and instruction, which was eventually codified in amendments to the Yukon Act, along with redesignation of the legislative assembly from territorial council. The process, particularly since 1979, has devolved powers from the federal government to the territorial government, bringing authority which is normally reserved by the Articles of Confederation for provinces to the territory.