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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Johnson says the refusal is in solidarity with an indigenous council member who has raised concerns about the Crown\u2019s history with Canada\u2019s indigenous people.<\/p>\n
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”.<\/p>\n
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”. <\/p>\n
In the meantime, the new council is not able to govern or make official decisions until the matter is resolved. <\/p>\n
In an interview with the Canadian Press, Mayor-elect Johnson said the situation had left him stuck.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t do anything legally required of us under the Municipal Act,\u201d he explained, until the council takes the oath. \u201cIt\u2019s a bit of a sticky situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnson said he and the other councillors refused the oath in solidarity with fellow councillor Darwyn Lynn, a member of the Tr\u2019ond\u00ebk Hw\u00ebch\u2019in First Nation, who was hesitant to pledge allegiance. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is being done with no disrespect to His Majesty King Charles,\u201d Johnson told the Canadian Press. \u201cAnd also we\u2019re not doing this to go, \u2018Rah, rah, look at us,\u2019 to poke everybody across Canada, to get rid of the Crown.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just something we wanted to do together to show solidarity in what we do here in this town.”<\/p>\n
As a remedy, the town council has asked Yukon territorial officials if they could take an alternative oath.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for Yukon\u2019s Department of Community Services confirmed to the BBC that they had received this request, but have not commented on whether it will be granted.<\/p>\n
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”.<\/p>\n
He added the town’s response to the standoff had been mixed. <\/p>\n
“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. <\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The town is located on the former site of Tr\u2019och\u00ebk, a hunting and fishing camp where the Klondike and Yukon rivers meet. Its people, the Tr\u2019ond\u00ebk Hw\u00ebch\u2019in, were displaced after the Klondike gold rush brought nearly 17,000 new settlers.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s legacy of colonialism was one of \u201chumiliation, neglect and abuse\u201d.<\/p>\n
This is not the first time that elected officials in Canada have refused to take an oath to the King.<\/p>\n
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 \u201ca relic from the past\u201d.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, a member of Canada\u2019s national parliament introduced a similar bill, though it was defeated by a vote of 197-113.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A town council in Canada is at a standstill after its newly elected members refused to pledge allegiance…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":373418,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7708],"tags":[7709,7730,7731,1760,7710,519],"class_list":{"0":"post-373417","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-royals","8":"tag-british-royal-family","9":"tag-charles","10":"tag-charles-iii","11":"tag-king-charles","12":"tag-royal-families","13":"tag-royal-family"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115091783258171457","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/373418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}