The first NDP premier of the Yukon, Tony Penikett had a long career in the Legislature, and remains one of the longest serving premiers in the territory’s history.
Tony Penikett was born in Sussex, England on Nov. 14, 1945. He attended school in England, before coming to Alberta and then Ontario when he was in his teens.
He started living in the Yukon when he worked as an asbestos mine labourer at Clinton Creek, Yukon.
While working at the mine, he became active in the union, chairing the grievance committee.
A supporter of the New Democratic Party, he was a campaign manager for Wally Firth in 1972, who became the first Indigenous northern MP to be elected to the House of Commons.
In the 1974 federal election, he ran for Parliament with the NDP but lost. Penikett said,
“I’m surprised, I thought we ran a much better campaign than the Liberals. I felt that we would get our ideas across and I am surprised that we haven’t done better than them.”
In the federal election, Penikett was able to raise the NDP’s popular vote in the Yukon from 11 per cent in the 1972 election to 19.5 per cent in the 1974 election.
In 1975, with his wife Lulla, he had a son named Tahmoh Penikett. He went on to become an actor, starring as Karl Agathon on Battlestar Galactica, Supernatural, Dollhouse and Continuum.
Penikett dabbled in film himself, consulting on the documentaries The Lost Patrol and The Mad Trapper of Rat River in 1972 and 1974.
Penikett was also part of the NDP’s federal council, and was the executive assistant to NDP leader Ed Broadbent from 1975 to 1977.
In 1977, Penikett was elected to the Whitehorse City Council.
In 1978, Penikett was elected to the Yukon Legislature, beginning a long career in provincial politics. At the time, he was the party’s only MLA. He chose to stay on council while also serving in the legislature, something that drew criticism from Whitehorse Mayor Ione Christensen. She said,
“To be representatives of two governments takes someone wiser than most of us. To do either of the jobs will take every minute.”
In 1981, he was chosen to be the leader of the Yukon NDP. He was elected by a 100 vote margin over his rival candidate John Harney.
Soon after, Maurice Byblow crossed the floor to join the party and Roger Kimmerly won a by-election. The three seats allowed the NDP to become the Official Opposition, and Penikett became the Leader of the Opposition.
He said of this new position,
“Increasingly, the population of the Yukon will look on us as an alternative to the Conservative government as people have increasingly done so in the West.”
Heading into the election the following year, Macleans wrote,
“Penikett is campaigning hard to convince the rugged northerners that a vote for a democratic socialist will not be a wasted, or wrongheaded move.”
During the election campaign, he drove 4,000 kilometres over the Yukon roads to shake hands with electors from every riding. The only riding he didn’t make it to was Old Crow, since it was accessible by air. He said of some of the things he saw,
“a moose, a hawk and a bald eagle.”
It was his belief that getting out to the voters was the best chance at getting elected. Macleans wrote,
“The Opposition leader is using every chance to attack the Conservative administration. He charges that the Tories campaign has been totally erratic.”
While campaigning, he attacked both the Liberals and Conservatives. He said that the Liberals were going to lose due to a growing change in federal politics. He said,
“The problem for the Liberals is that the whole nation is going through a fundamental reorientation along political lines.”
Meanwhile, the Progressive Conservatives under Chris Pearson portrayed the NDP and Penikett as communists, even taping cartoons related to that on the walls of the campaign offices. One of the cartoons showed Penikett talking with Fidel Castro. Penikett refused to comment on how he was being portrayed by the Progressive Conservatives, stating he wanted to be a positive and constructive leader who could effectively deal with Ottawa.
Penikett also stated that the most important issue was working on land claims with the First Nations in the territory.
In the 1982 election, the NDP won six seats to remain the Official Opposition, while the Liberals finished with no seats.
For the next two years, Penikett spent his time in the Opposition, mostly attacking the policies of the ruling Conservatives.
When Premier Chris Pearson resigned in October 1984, he said
“The rumor on the street is that there are a number of ambitious people after his job. There is some sense that maybe he jumped before he was pushed.”
In the 1985 election, the NDP won eight seats to form a minority government, with Penikett becoming premier or government leader. Penikett called the victory the end of a long journey that began in 1970 when the Yukon NDP forged a coalition of workers, women and First Nations.
Upon winning Penkiett said,
“One of the big changes we represent is a generational change. The Tories are people whose consciousness was found in the ‘50s. We are very much children of the ‘60s. We have instinctively different attitudes in terms of things like race relations and equality of sexes.”
At the time of the election, half of the NDP MLAs were First Nations descent. Chief Johnny Smith of the Whitehorse Kwanlin Dun band stated that it gave the territory an air of good feeling and a spirit of co-operation.
Two years later when Danny Joe won a byelection, five of the eight NDP MLAs were First Nations. That election of Danny Joe also gave the party a majority government.
As premier, Penikett wanted a better deal for the territory within Canadian Confederation, which meant control over its resources. In his first speech as premier, he stated he wanted to work with businesses in a climate of certainty, stability and openness. He said,
“In the past, a lot of businesses overextended themselves on the boat of the gravy train. We don’t want people selling their lives to banks in the hopes of getting bucks that aren’t there.”
Like his predecessors, he also wanted the Yukon to have a greater role at the First Ministers conference.
With the First Nations, his government worked with them to create an umbrella agreement on land claims. The first four agreements with individual First Nations came during his time as premier.
He said of an agreement reached with the First Nations in April 1986,
“In the Yukon, the parties have reached a consensus in defining a process to pursue an equitable settlement that highlights a need to work co-operatively towards solutions. Our settlement will not extinguished aboriginal rights but rather seek to define the parties’ respective rights and obligations.”
The government of Penikett also developed an economic development strategy for the Yukon, expanded day care coverage, recruited more women and First Nations into the party and government,
One of his government’s biggest accomplishments was the creation of the Yukon Human Rights Act, which banned discrimination on the basis of age, race, gender or sexual orientation.
In 1989, his government won another majority government with nine seats, remaining the only NDP government in Canada.
Penikett said,
“Tonight, we have won a mandate to continue to diversify the economy, improve social services and complete the most important historic project for Yukon, the land-claims settlement.”
Also in 1989, Penikett took the title of Premier, the first leader of the territory to officially do so. He did this to increase the territory’s clout when dealing with other governments in Canada. He said the Yukon was not a colony of Ottawa anymore and that the title government leader was a colonial remnant of the past.
When the Meech Lake Accord was being negotiated, Penikett’s government opposed it as it made it nearly impossible for the Yukon to become a province. He felt it violated the rights of Yukon residents by granting each province an absolute veto on the creation of a new province, while also giving provinces consultation rights on the appointment of senators and Supreme Court Justices, but not territories.
Penikett said,
“I find it ironic in a meeting where there’s talk of fairness and equality and consensus that the rules are not applied to us. We’re Canadians too.”
He added that the territories were treated as an afterthought of Confederation. He said,
“Everybody else in the country except us gets to decide our future in Confederation.”
Penikett called the Meech Lake Accord an effort to make northerners second class citizens. His government fought the accord in court, but this was dismissed.
In 1992, Penikett’s NDP lost in the territorial election and went back to being the Official Opposition. He said,
“We have taken a step back, a pause, I hope. We ain’t dead yet and our struggle for the things we believe in starts again tomorrow.”
On April 25, 1994, Penikett announced his resignation as leader of the Yukon NDP. He said to NDP members at the spring convention,
“I propose the next territorial convention be an open leadership convention. Oscar Wilde said he could never be a socialist because it took too many evenings. After 20 years, I’m starting to understand what he meant.”
Former MLA Joyce Hayden said that without Penikett, the Yukon NDP as Yukoners knew it would have never existed.
His last day in the legislature was Sept. 27, 1995.
Penikett then became an advisor in the office of Saskatchewan Premier Roy Romanow.
In 1998, he was appointed by the Government of British Columbia to lead contract negotiations with public sector unions. In that role for the next two years, he negotiated 32 public sector accords, representing 250,000 provincial public employees. This remains the largest number of social contracts negotiated in Canadian history.
In the 2000s and 2010s, he embarked on an academic career.
In 2020, he was awarded the Order of Canada.
*sources*
- Trudeau Foundation: https://www.trudeaufoundation.ca/directory/tony-penikett/
- Governor General of Canada: https://www.gg.ca/en/honours/recipients/146-102751
- The Polar Connection: https://polarconnection.org/profiles-advisory-bo/tony-penikett/
