CPAWS Makes “What We Heard” Count

CPAWS-Yukon has determined that 94% of total feedback received during the last round of Peel consultations supports the Peel Watershed Planning Commission’s Final Recommended Plan and/or Peel protection.

“The support for Peel protection and the Commission’s Final Recommended Plan is absolutely overwhelming,” says CPAWS-Yukon executive director Gill Cracknell. “This provides a very clear mandate for government moving forward.”

“Even if you remove form letters and petitions, 82% of submissions favour protection,” says Cracknell. “And of these, 82% came from the Yukon and NWT – not Toronto, Dusseldorf, or Pasadena.”

On April 4, the Yukon Government released all the submissions it received during the final round of consultations, along with a “What We Heard” summary (available at http://www.peelconsultation.ca).  The summary focused on themes. Numbers were not released.

“Yukon government’s report tells Yukoners what they already know,” says Cracknell, “not what they want to know, which is how many people feel the way they do.”

“So many people have expressed their frustration and bewilderment that government chose not to publish these numbers that we felt obligated to calculate the numbers ourselves.”

CPAWS-Yukon contracted an independent consultant to review all feedback on the final round of Peel Watershed consultations (see attached background information for more details: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/41834153/CPAWS/Numbers%20Background.pdf).

The data was divided into four categories:
• Supports the Final Recommended Plan and/or Peel protection.
• Opposes the Final Recommended Plan and/or protection
• Favours one of the Yukon government’s alternative concepts.
• Responses unclear or not relevant to the above categories.

“It is obvious support for the Final Recommended Plan and extensive protection of the Peel Watershed is overwhelming, both inside and outside the territory,” says Cracknell. “This unprecedented response to a government consultation process speaks loud and clear.”

“The Yukon government needs to represent Yukoners. The only way it can do that is to respect Yukoners’ feedback and accept the Peel Watershed Land-Use Planning Commission’s Final Recommended Plan.”

For more information contact:

Gill Cracknell
Executive Director
CPAWS-Yukon
332-8079