A Canadian city is going through a governance disaster after its newly elected mayor and councillors refused to take an oath of allegiance to the King.
Dawson Metropolis in Yukon, northwest Canada, requires its council members to pledge allegiance to the monarch in a swearing-in ceremony.
Below Yukon regulation, a newly elected official should take the oath inside 40 days of their election – or their win “shall be considered null”. The city’s election was held on 17 October, 37 days in the past.
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Governance in Dawson Metropolis is at a standstill. Pic: Reinhard Pantke/imageBROKER/Shutterstock
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Dawson Metropolis. Pic: Robert Haasmann/imageBROKER/Shutterstock
The brand new council can’t make official choices till the problem is resolved.
Darwyn Lynn, a member of the Tr’ondek Hwech’in First Nation, raised considerations about pledging allegiance to the Crown because of the troubled historical past of indigenous folks, who typically had been dispossessed and suffered abuse by the hands of Canadian governments and establishments.
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Mayor-elect Stephen Johnson. Pic: Fb/Stephen Johnson for Mayor of Dawson Metropolis
Mr Johnson stated: “We will not do something legally required of us below the Municipal Act. It’s kind of of a sticky state of affairs.
“This is being done with no disrespect to His Majesty King Charles. 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 simply one thing we needed to do collectively to point out solidarity in what we do right here on this city.”
The council has asked Yukon authorities if they can take an alternative oath.
Canadian elected officials are required to take the country’s oath of allegiance in which they swear they “will probably be devoted and bear true allegiance to His Majesty King Charles III” and his “heirs and successors in line with regulation”.
Canada is a Commonwealth nation and a former British colony.
Dawson Metropolis, which has round 2,400 residents, was on the centre of the Klondike Gold Rush that started in 1896.
Earlier than this, the realm was residence to the Tr’ondek Hwech’in individuals who had been displaced when almost 17,000 new settlers arrived as a part of a stampede to mine tens of millions of {dollars} value of gold discovered alongside the Klondike River.
