Open Letter re: Selling Off Yukon Housing Mortgage Portfolio
17-Jun-2010
Open Letter to Hon. Jim Kenyon Re: Selling Off YHC Mortgage Portfolio
Dear Mr. Kenyon:
During the spring sitting of the Yukon Legislative Assembly the Liberal Caucus asked whether your government had plans to privatize the Yukon Housing Corporation’s mortgage portfolio which consists of more than 230 mortgages worth in excess of $40 million.
In your typical fashion, you vehemently denied there was any truth to this possible sell-off and mocked the Opposition’s questions as “outrageous”.
We didn’t believe your denials at the time and how could we on the heels of the Premier’s secret negotiations to sell-off our energy future to a private company from Alberta?
Documents obtained through Access to Information, after you refused to provide them willingly, have now validated our suspicions. Your government did in fact consider selling the portfolio to a private sector lending institution and examined transferring YHC mortgage clients to banks as discussed at a board meeting in August, 2009.
Part of our information request was denied pursuant to Section 15 of the ATIPP which covers discussions by cabinet and cabinet decisions. This in itself contradicts what you said in the legislature and confirms that privatizing YHC mortgages was examined at the political level of government. This implicates you, Mr. Kenyon, and your cabinet colleagues.
In the legislature you also refused to confirm the existence of YHC’s report that examined options for privatization. But the board minutes have confirmed the report does in fact exist.
The minutes also confirm a resolution was passed regarding options which could provide YHC with cash for operations, current liabilities and long term debt.
Why did you deny the mortgage portfolio sell-off was being considered? Would you provide us with a copy of the YHC report and the resolution?
Yukoners might be quite concerned upon discovering your government is considering the transfer of their mortgages to a private sector institution. On their behalf, we ask you to respond to the following questions:
Gary McRobb
MLA for Kluane
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Energy, and in particular, electrical energy, is a necessity of life. The production of that energy must be green, must be economical and must be available as an intrinsic part of our economy.
What the components of such a system may look like in 10 or 20 years should be a decision for Yukoners to make. Government’s job is to facilitate the discussion, bring forth a consensus and then to implement it.