Keith Halliday

1 week ago | yukon-news.com | Keith Halliday

The DJs at the Kopper King played disco and the lines at the Yukon Theatre stretched around the block for the new science fiction phenomenon Star Wars. The Yukon News was still the new newspaper in town and its headlines were about oil embargos and geopolitical crises. Oil had just started flowing through the recently completed pipeline from the North Slope to Valdez and onto the tankers headed to Bellingham, Washington.

2 weeks ago | yukon-news.com | Keith Halliday

Yukoners live in harmony with majestic annual cycles of cosmic abundance, such as the annual migration of the Porcupine caribou herd, the return of the salmon to Haines, and the territorial capital budget. Like the eagles in Haines, government contractors perch expectantly around the Yukon legislature at a certain time of year for the annual running of the projects. Will it be a big year? How much will be chum, coho or chinook (think schools, highways or power lines)?

3 weeks ago | yukon-news.com | Keith Halliday

Consider this scenario: The premier of a tired government, hoping the party can win another term after a decade in power, has one last budget before facing the voters. He decides to run a big cash deficit, ramp up spending and announce major new projects in health and power generation. I’m talking, of course, about former Yukon Party Premier Darrell Pasloski in 2016. His last budget ramped the spending with a cash deficit up to $75 million.

1 month ago | yukon-news.com | Keith Halliday

Two weeks ago I wrote about how it might be time to dig up your gold stash as the iconic Yukon metal soared past the psychologically important US$3000 per ounce mark. This week let’s look at the Yukon’s second favourite metal: copper. On March 31, it was named “2025’s hottest commodity” by the Wall Street Journal, before tumbling sharply last week as markets reacted to President Trump’s tariff plans. Copper is vastly more useful than gold.

1 month ago | yukon-news.com | Keith Halliday

“Ask not what you can do for your country, ask instead for a convention centre.” Snap quiz: Which famous statesperson said that? Was it Canadian “Minister of Everything” C.D. Howe when we needed to massively ramp up defence production during World War Two? President John F. Kennedy, trying to rally the democratic world against the challenge of Soviet authoritarianism? Or President Barack Obama when he launched an emergency economic plan to counter the Global Financial Crisis in 2009?