Former Kwanlin Dün chief Doris Bill seeks Yukon Liberal leadership
Bill is 1st declared candidate in race to replace outgoing Premier Ranj Pillai
Doris Bill, the former chief of the Kwanlin Dün First Nation, is running to become the next leader of the Yukon Liberal Party.
She is the first candidate to publicly declare her intentions to replace Premier Ranj Pillai, who announced last week that he plans to step down once the party chooses its new leader.
Bill, who does not hold a seat in the Yukon Legislative Assembly, kicked off her leadership campaign at the McBride Museum in Whitehorse on Monday morning.
"Now it's the time to come together … I envision a place where every voice is genuinely heard," Bill said, standing alongside a large campaign banner reading, "let's move forward."
Bill is a former three-term chief of the Kwanlin Dün First Nation. She was first elected chief in 2014 and served for nine years before being ousted by Sean Smith in 2023. Before she was chief, Bill was a CBC News journalist.
She was also the co-chair of the Yukon Advisory Committee on MMIWG2S+ and vice chair of the Yukon Residential School Missing Children Project.
Bill is also a member of the health transformation advisory committee, a group formed to guide the territorial government's work to establish a health authority. In 2023, she was appointed to a three-year term as chair of the Yukon Housing Corporation board of directors.
In a statement on her leadership campaign website, Bill said the territory is facing "uncertain times" amid economic concerns and global challenges that are "weighing heavily on us."
She said the territory's Liberal government — first elected in 2016 under former premier Sandy Silver — has "risen to the challenge with a strong economy, improved social investments, expanded education services and has made considerable infrastructure investments."
The deadline for leadership candidate nominations is May 29. Each candidate will have to pay a non-refundable nomination fee of $7,000 to the Yukon Liberal Party.
On June 19, the party will hold its leadership convention in Whitehorse, where members will choose their next leader by ranked preferential ballot.
The next leader will then serve as premier until the next general election, which must happen before Nov. 3.