Latest news with #Yukon-specific
CBC
18-04-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Whitehorse gallery exhibit shows off beauty and artistry of beaded earrings
Nine. That's the number of times the word "bougie" was used in the Yukon Legislature on Wednesday, as MLAs from all three parties paid tribute to Teagyn Vallevand's first show as curator of the Hudę Njú Kú gallery in Whitehorse's Kwanlin Dün Cultural Centre. The show, which opened on March 14, is titled My Big Bougie Beaded* Earrings. "I put … an asterisk because we didn't always use beads," Vallevand said. "We utilized other resources that are Yukon First Nations-specific." Those Yukon-specific resources included home tanned hide, fish leather, porcupine quills, shells, foxtails, whale baleen, and at least five different kinds of fur, which were all found in the earrings at the gallery — along with modern seed beads, copper cones, commercial hide, sapphires, rubies, vinyl and rhinestones. "I just love being able to learn and work with our traditional art styles," Vallevand said. "And then also, as an artist, playing with, 'What does contemporary Indigenous artwork mean?'" Vallevand is a Kwanlin Dun citizen. In addition to being a curator, she is a beader, weaver and carver. She said she was was blown away by the interest in her first exhibit. Expecting to receive around 20 sets of earrings, she ended up getting 53 submissions from artists across the North. "Yukon First Nations artisans went hard," she said. Earrings as entrepreneurship Twenty-one pieces ended up on the gallery walls, but Vallevand didn't want to leave the others out. Instead, she added a retail element to the show. The earrings that didn't make it to the main exhibit are displayed in glass cases, and are available for sale. "I feel like as an Indigenous artist, so many of us have made earrings," Vallevand says. "I know for myself as an artist, a couple of times I would sell earrings to make a couple extra dollars here and there to help support myself." Many placards in the gallery shared stories of how beadwork connected the artists with their communities, their cultures and their ancestors. Many of the artists learned to bead from their grandmothers, great-grandmothers or uncles, and are now passing the skill on to future generations. Vallevand said beadwork can also be a survival skill, with women selling their work to help provide for their families. "I wanted to honour that," she said. Living art and stories What Vallevand wanted to honour is the idea that beadwork isn't a historical art form meant to hang on a museum wall. It's living, breathing culture, she said. "I think it's really important now to have space as a Yukon First Nations curator to be able to … do things a little bit differently than how a normal exhibition works." Vallevand says for her, being a curator is about storytelling. Her father was a storyteller at CBC, and she says in her new role, "I feel like I'm also telling a story. And so I feel really connected to him." As for being recognized in the Legislature, Vallevand says she wasn't expecting the kudos to come one after the other, from all three parties. "I kind of felt like the queen," she says. "It was very cute."
CBC
29-03-2025
- Business
- CBC
Yukon government sets priorities to guide this year's nominee program
The Yukon government has announced a set of priorities for this year's Yukon Nominee Program, marking a departure from its past first-come, first-served approach for applicants. The program, which is intended to help fill local labour market gaps by bringing in skilled immigrants, has remained closed since the federal government cut the Yukon's annual allocation to 215 nominees — half of what it received in 2024. On Thursday, the government said it will invite employers to submit an expression of interest in applying for the program. Employers will complete a form online, providing basic information about a specific foreign worker they want to nominate. That intake period will open on Monday, and close on April 22. Then, the Department of Economic Development will invite employers to submit a full application to the nominee program if their candidate fulfills one or more of the priorities. Those include: residence and employment in the Yukon for at least one year, being a graduate of Yukon University, ability to speak French, and a temporary measure letter of support from the Yukon government to obtain a Yukon-specific work permit. This year, 10 nominations will be allocated for people in regulated health-care professions. Intake for the nominee program was first paused for Whitehorse-based employers in May 2024 when applications exceeded the allocation limit for that year. The federal government halved the Yukon's allocation of nominees in 2025 from the previous year, to 215. The Yukon government then extended the program's hiatus to consult local businesses on how to best use that limited number of spots. The territory's Economic Development department considers the new process to be fairer and more strategic than the past practice, where the quickest businesses got access to the limited number of nominees. The listed priorities aim to reduce staff turnover rates, target those who are more likely to stay in the Yukon, support Francophone immigration and help prospective nominees who were affected when the program was first closed. While Premier Ranj Pillai believes the priorities reflect those of the business community, he singled out retail as an industry that will see fewer nominees. "I don't think everybody will be happy. I think parts of the economy that have really leaned on these programs are probably not going to see the same amount of availability to workers," he said. Pillai said the Yukon and federal government are having conversations about adding 100 nominations to the territory's allocation. Opposition cites concerns raised by auditor general The nominee program was a subject in the legislature's question period earlier this week, with the official opposition asking the government how it was responding to concerns raised by the auditor general in January. When speaking to reporters, Yukon Party Leader Currie Dixon only had a quick glance at the government's news release about the new priorities, which was posted Thursday as MLAs were sitting in the legislature. But he wanted to see changes that address the auditor general's concerns such as a lack of trust in the program's integrity and perceptions of unfairness. "We had hoped to see some sort of changes to the process that would accommodate the concerns raised by the auditor general, particularly around the lack of enforceable conflict of interest," Dixon said. NDP Leader Kate White also alluded to the auditor general's letter, which discussed the imbalance of power between employers and nominees. "There's a real vulnerability when you're a person from another country looking to come in through the nominee program. So I still have concerns," she said. In response to Dixon's comments, Pillai said he trusted department staff to act "appropriately," including by seeking advice from the conflict of interest commissioner. He also expressed confidence in the assistant deputy minister's oversight of the program. "I think we have a strong process in place. We're going to be chatting very soon about some [advice] we're going to have from outside the department," he said. "I think we're in a trust building process." According to the government's operational guidance, the intake for program applications will begin with those carried over from 2024 when applications outnumbered the Yukon's allocation for that year. This year's priorities will apply to those applications. The expression of interest phase will follow. If there are more expressions of interest that meet the 2025 priorities than there are available nominations, the department will invite those with the temporary measure letters of support to apply. The application spots left over will be randomly selected from qualifying expressions of interest.
