Sandy Silver acclaimed as Liberal candidate for Yukon's Klondike seat

Yukon Liberal leader Sandy Silver was acclaimed as his party's candidate for the KlondikeMLA seat in the upcoming territorial election at a meeting in Dawson City Sunday night.

The meeting was largely a formality. Fewer than a dozen party faithful turned up on thelong weekend.

Silver is heading into his first election as Yukon Liberal leader. During a speech Sunday he criticized the governing Yukon Party for being too partisan.

"Partisan politics, political interference is everywhere in how we do our decision-making in the Yukon whether it be procurementor educationor mental health and social services," he said.

"We want to take partisanship and put it inits place in Yukon."

No platform yet

The Liberal leader said his party isn't yet ready to release its election platform. Silver said the party is still working on turning policy into a platform. But he said the Liberals areincluding people from outside the party in the process.

"You don't have to be a Liberal to give us content. You just have to be someone who's concerned and has something to contribute," he said. "And we're a party that can accept that conversation from the left and that conversation from the right."

Silver won Klondike with 49 per cent of the vote in 2011, defeating incumbent Yukon Party MLA Steve Nordick. Silver became Liberal leader after the party's former leader, Arthur Mitchell, lost his seat in the same election.

Parties preparing for likely fall vote

All three major parties are gearing up for the next territorial election, which must take place by October.

Yukon premier Darrell Pasloski and his cabinet were in Dawson City last week for that community's annual gold show, announcing $600,000 in funding for mining access roads and to promote the placer mining industry.

The NDP is nominating candidates and held its party convention in early May.

Silver is the sixth Liberal candidate to be nominated in the run-up to the election. He said the party is planning to announce more candidates soon.