Yukon looks to avoid municipal byelection in Dawson City, where councillors refuse to swear oath to King

A spokesperson for the Yukon government says the territory does not want to force a municipal byelection in Dawson City, despite legislation saying that may be necessary.

Earlier this month, the newly elected town councillors in Dawson refused to take the oath of allegiance to the King while being sworn in to office. They cited the Crown's troubled history with First Nations as the reason for their collective decision.

Under the territory's Municipal Act, elected town councillors are required to take the oaths of office and allegiance within 40 days of being proclaimed. Failure to do so could make the election results null and void and the office deemed vacant.

"We are looking to avoid a byelection," said Community Services spokesperson John Tonin. "We do not want that."

Instead, Tonin said the government is looking at alternative options for the oath but couldn't provide further details about what that could be. He said the deadline for councillors to take the oath, or for finding an alternative, is Dec. 9.

Oath 'running into some fairly difficult situations'

Philippe Lagassé is an associate professor at Carleton University in Ottawa whose research focuses on the roles of Parliament, the Crown and executive power in Westminster states, notably in the areas of foreign and military affairs.

He said Dawson City's councillors aren't the only politicians who have recently taken issue with the oath of allegiance, noting other cases in Quebec and Ontario.

In 2022, the Quebec government made the oath of allegiance to the monarch optional for its elected members. That prompted a town councillor in Prescott, Ont., to bring forward a motion in his town to call for Ontario to follow Quebec's lead, though the motion was ultimately never voted on.

"I think this is really demonstrating the extent to which the oath is now running into some fairly difficult situations in a number of jurisdictions," he said.

"The reality is there's a legal requirement to take the oath. The oath is in statute, and the statute is very clear about the necessity to take it."

However, Lagassé also points out that Quebec found a way around it for MLAs in that province, "and I do wonder if in this situation again we'll find a way to somehow circumvent it."

Lagassé suggested that one way to ensure Dawson's elected councillors take office while still standing by their values would be for them to take the oath of allegiance and subsequently change it.

"That would arrive at a proper balance, I would argue, between the demands of the rule of law on the one hand, and a desire to move beyond this oath on the other," he said.

Monarch 'embodies our state'

Lagassé said the oath of allegiance is often viewed differently depending on the person.

He said the oath to the Crown doesn't necessarily mean an oath to the King himself but to the system of government and democratic institutions.

"The monarch in their legal capacity basically embodies our state and embodies our system," Lagassé said. "That's how the courts have interpreted it and why they said it was a reasonable thing to expect new citizens to swear allegiance to."

He said he understands, though, why some might read it as a simple oath to the monarch and then ask, "Why not just swear to the state if that's what we're being asked to do?"

Lagassé said he believes that there may be a snowball effect as more jurisdictions look to move away from taking an oath to the Crown. He wonders if it's time to consider a different oath of allegiance.

"In Australia they simply swear to Australia," he said.

"If the courts are telling us that this is simply an oath to democratic institutions and our state, then there's a way to reconcile that allegorical interpretation and a plain reading, which is simply to change the plain reading of the oath."