Town council in Canada at standstill over refusal to take King's oath

Dawson City in the Yukon Territory is home to about 2,400 residents.

A town council in Canada is at a standstill after its newly elected members refused to pledge allegiance to King Charles III as required in the swearing-in ceremony.

Stephen Johnson, the mayor-elect of Dawson City in Yukon Territory, and the new council were elected last month. They were to be sworn early this month but that process stalled after they refused to take the oath.

Johnson says the refusal is in solidarity with an indigenous council member who has raised concerns about the Crown’s history with Canada’s indigenous people.

Under Yukon law, a newly elected official must take the oath within 40 days of their election or else their win "shall be considered null".

This means Johnson and the rest of council have until 9 December to take the Oath of Allegiance, in which elected officials in Canada - a Commonwealth country and former British colony - swear or affirm they "will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty King Charles III" and his "heirs and successors according to law".

In the meantime, the new council is not able to govern or make official decisions until the matter is resolved.

In an interview with the Canadian Press, Mayor-elect Johnson said the situation had left him stuck.

“We can’t do anything legally required of us under the Municipal Act,” he explained, until the council takes the oath. “It’s a bit of a sticky situation.”

Johnson said he and the other councillors refused the oath in solidarity with fellow councillor Darwyn Lynn, a member of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation, who was hesitant to pledge allegiance.

“This is being done with no disrespect to His Majesty King Charles,” Johnson told the Canadian Press. “And also we’re not doing this to go, ‘Rah, rah, look at us,’ to poke everybody across Canada, to get rid of the Crown.

“It was just something we wanted to do together to show solidarity in what we do here in this town."

As a remedy, the town council has asked Yukon territorial officials if they could take an alternative oath.

A spokesperson for Yukon’s Department of Community Services confirmed to the BBC that they had received this request, but have not commented on whether it will be granted.

Bill Kendrick, the town's outgoing mayor, told the BBC that he hoped "it gets worked out for the sake of the new council, so they can get down to business".

He added the town's response to the standoff had been mixed.

"I'd say it's the whole gamut," Mr Kendrick said. Some believe the oath is outdated, while others interpret it as a symbol of support for Canada's system of governance.

Dawson City is a town of 2,400, known for being the heart of the historic Klondike Gold Rush that began in 1896. It is the second-largest municipality in the Yukon, a Canadian territory that borders Alaska.

The town is located on the former site of Tr’ochëk, a hunting and fishing camp where the Klondike and Yukon rivers meet. Its people, the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in, were displaced after the Klondike gold rush brought nearly 17,000 new settlers.

Canada has acknowledged its fraught history with its indigenous peoples in recent years. In 2017, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declared before the United Nations that the country’s legacy of colonialism was one of “humiliation, neglect and abuse”.

This is not the first time that elected officials in Canada have refused to take an oath to the King.

In 2022, the French-speaking province of Quebec passed legislation that ended the requirement to have elected officials take an oath to the monarchy. One lawmaker called it “a relic from the past”.

Earlier this year, a member of Canada’s national parliament introduced a similar bill, though it was defeated by a vote of 197-113.

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