Peter William Jenkins (April 30, 1944 – October 2021) was a Canadian

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, ...

, who served as deputy premier and health minister in the territorial government of the

Yukon Yukon (; ; formerly called Yukon Territory and also referred to as the Yukon) is the smallest and westernmost of Canada's three territories. It also is the second-least populated province or territory in Canada, with a population of 43,964 as ...

, and as mayor of

Dawson City Dawson City, officially the City of Dawson, is a town in the Canadian territory of Yukon. It is inseparably linked to the Klondike Gold Rush (1896–99). Its population was 1,577 as of the 2021 census, making it the second-largest town in Yuko ...

Biography

Jenkins, a hotelier, first ran for the territorial legislature in 1989, but lost to NDP cabinet minister

Art Webster Arthur Victor Webster is a former Canadian politician, who represented the electoral district of Klondike in the Yukon Legislative Assembly from 1985 to 1992. He was a member of the Yukon New Democratic Party. He was defeated by David Millar ...

. Jenkins' campaign manager at that time was future Liberal Premier

Pat Duncan Pat Duncan (born April 8, 1960) is a Canadian politician from Yukon. Duncan served as leader of the Yukon Liberal Party from 1998 to 2005 and as the sixth premier of Yukon from 2000 until 2002. Duncan was the first Liberal premier of the Yukon ...

. Prior to entering provincial politics, he served as mayor of Dawson City from 1980 to 1994,"Jenkins seeks Dawson City mayor's job, again"

CBC News CBC News is a division of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the news gathering and production of news programs on the corporation's English-language operations, namely CBC Television, CBC Radio, CBC News Network, and CBC.ca ...

, September 24, 2009. earning the nickname "Pirate Pete" after he registered for

satellite television Satellite television is a service that delivers television programming to viewers by relaying it from a communications satellite orbiting the Earth directly to the viewer's location. The signals are received via an outdoor parabolic antenna com ...

service under the name of a dead local pioneer and then redistributed the television signals to residents of Dawson City for free. Jenkins was first elected to the Yukon Legislative Assembly in the 1996 election in Klondike for the

Yukon Party The Yukon Party (french: Parti du Yukon) is a conservative political party in Yukon, Canada. It is the successor to the Yukon Progressive Conservative Party. Formation With Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's Progressive Conservative federal go ...

. He defended his seat in the 2000 election, the only Yukon Party member to do so. He assumed the leadership of the party after the election. He held the position as sole MLA and leader until May and June 2002, when Dennis Fentie crossed the floor from the NDP and won the party's leadership, defeating Jenkins and former party president Darcy Tkachuk. Jenkins defended his seat successfully in the 2002 general election and was sworn into cabinet in November, serving as Health Minister and Deputy Premier until November 28, 2005 when he resigned from the party and cabinet. Jenkins said this was because "the heart and soul of my community has been ripped out by the inefficiences of government at the municipal level, the territorial level." Fentie told the press at the time it was due to the ongoing loans file, which involved Jenkins owing $300,000 to the territorial government, in which he served as minister. This eventually was cleared off the books in March 2006. Jenkins sat as an

Independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independe ...

MLA in the Assembly until dissolution, and chose not to run in the 2006 general election. Jenkins later ran for another term as mayor of Dawson City in the 2009 municipal election, defeating incumbent John Steins by seven votes. He was defeated in the 2012 municipal election by Wayne Potoroka. At the age of 77, Jenkins died from

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quick ...

at a hospital in

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the city, up from 631,486 in 2016. ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, for ...

, in October 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic in British Columbia.

Electoral record

Yukon general election, 2002

, - , style="width: 130px" , Liberal , Glen Everitt , align="right", 224 , align="right", 22.9% , align="right", -14.0% , - ,

NDP NDP may stand for: Computing * Neighbor Discovery Protocol, an Internet protocol * Nortel Discovery Protocol, a layer two Internet protocol, also called SONMP * Nondeterministic programming, a type of computer language Government * National ...

, Lisa Hutton , align="right", 200 , align="right", 21.3% , align="right", -1.9% , - bgcolor="white" !align="left" colspan=3, Total !align="right", 937 !align="right", 100.0% !align="right", –

Yukon general election, 2000

, - , - , style="width: 130px" , Liberal , Stuart Schmidt , align="right", 397 , align="right", 36.9% , align="right", +28.2% , - ,

, Aedes Scheer , align="right", 249 , align="right", 23.2% , align="right", -10.7% , - , - bgcolor="white" !align="left" colspan=3, Total !align="right", 1,075 !align="right", 100.0% !align="right", –

Yukon general election, 1996

, - , - ,

, Tim Gerberding , align="right", 372 , align="right", 33.9% , align="right", -12.0% , - , style="width: 130px" , Liberal , Glen Everitt , align="right", 96 , align="right", 8.8% , align="right", +8.8% , - , style="width: 130px" ,

, John Cramp , align="right", 21 , align="right", 1.9% , align="right", +1.9% , - , - bgcolor="white" !align="left" colspan=3, Total !align="right", 1,099 !align="right", 100.0% !align="right", –

References

External links

Yukon Legislative Assembly Website - Biography of Peter Jenkins
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jenkins, Peter 1944 births 2021 deaths Anglophone Quebec people Independent MLAs in Yukon Mayors of Dawson City Politicians from Montreal Yukon Party MLAs Yukon political party leaders Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada