Pearson, Chris

Chris Pearson was born in 1931 in Letbridge ( Alberta ). After graduating from the University of Alberta , in 1957 he moved to the territory of Yukon , where he worked as a civil engineer ^[2] . Since 1960, he was a civil servant, in 1973 he opened his own business ^[3] .

Over time, Pearson became involved in regional politics. He was chairman of the Whitehorse Chamber of Commerce and a member of several government commissions for the Yukon — in particular, the power supply and small business loan commissions ^[3] . With the formation in 1978 of the Yukon organization of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada (later ), he became a member and took part in the first territorial elections on a party basis. Although the conservatives won a majority in the in the November 1978 election, the current party leader, Hilda Watson, lost in her district and resigned from the party head ^[4] on December 8, and Pearson became the leader of the parliamentary majority, 11 of which 16 deputies.

On February 3, 1979, Pearson was elected as the new leader of the party on a non-alternative basis. As the leader of the majority in the legislative assembly, he automatically headed the territorial government office, which at that time consisted of five people ^[3] . However, at this time, the Yukon territory was actually ruled by Commissioner Yukon , and one of the tasks of the Pearson Cabinet was to form a responsible government . In June 1979, Pearson sent a letter , who was a member of the newly elected conservative government of Canada, demanding an extension of powers for a democratically elected territorial authority. Epp's response letter, sent in October to Yukon Yone Christensen , the current Commissioner of Yukon, not only contained detailed instructions for limiting the Commissioner's power and extending the powers of the territorial government, but also appropriated the head of this government for the first time in Yukon history ^[5] .

However, the promise of the federal government to give the Yukon the status of a province, however, did not happen, since the Conservatives lost the federal election in 1980 and Trudeau's liberal government, not interested in further strengthening local power in the Yukon, returned to power. Under Trudeau, changes were made to the Constitution of Canada that did not allow the territory to become a province without the consent of at least seven provinces, representing at least 50% of the Canadian population; de facto, this meant granting no veto power to any proposals of this kind that are not interested in changing the status quo of the province of Québec . Nevertheless, the Pearson Cabinet later began to play a more important role in matters of control over the provincial territory and resources, in particular, initiating the transfer of lands under the control of indigenous nations ^[3] . At the same time, Pearson resolutely opposed and managed to make changes in the text of the agreement between the federal government and the Inuvialuits - Inuit of the Northwest Territories - about the transfer to their region of the settlement of the Herschel island of Yukon. At present, the Yukon Territorial Park has been created on Herschel Island ^[6] .

Although in the 1982 territorial elections , candidates from the New Democratic Party who advocate indigenous land rights and therefore enjoy the support of the Yukon Indian Council, achieved good results in rural areas, most Whitehorse constituencies again supported the Conservatives with their resource development program Pearson second term as prime minister. However, the Pearson program, which was focused on the immediate attraction of investments, did not contain a long-term plan to diversify the economy, and with the onset of the economic crisis, responsibility for over-enthusiasm for the raw materials industries to the detriment of everything else was assigned to his office, forced to introduce austerity economy in civil service activities. In addition, relations with indigenous nationalities deteriorated since 1982, when the Pearson government stopped negotiations with the Indian leadership on land rights, reluctantly resuming them the following year. During this period, four ministers of the Pearson Cabinet, one after another, resigned in connection with scandals and personal problems, and in March 1985 he himself declared that he was leaving. Two months later, the Yukon Tories, who were now headed by , could not get the majority of seats in the legislature, where the NDP formed a minority government ^[7] .

After resigning from the post of prime minister of Yukon, Chris Pearson was appointed to Dallas (Texas) as deputy general consul of Canada ^[6] . While in the United States, he remarried and in 1990 he moved permanently to the Valley of the New River (Virginia). He died on February 14, 2014 , leaving behind a widow and three children ^[2] .

• A statement by Premier Pasloski on the passing of Chris Pearson (Neopr.) . Government of Yukon (February 20, 2014). The appeal date is January 20, 2015.