The blame game: Why are Yukon's Liberals still at it, one year in?

As MLAs enter the final stretch of the fall sitting — and nearly a year after the election — Yukon's Liberals can't seem to help themselves.

They still play the "blame game", even months after Premier Sandy Silver vowed it would stop.

The Liberals' first sitting as government ended in mid-June and the sitting had been peppered with indignant references from the government benches to the sorry state of affairs left by their Yukon Party predecessors.

Not a surprising approach, given the Yukon Party was in power for 14 years. But as a tactic in the Legislative Assembly, it had become shopworn by the end of the sitting.

Silver admitted as much to reporters, and made an express commitment to move on and leave the past behind.

"If we get the opposition trying to mislead folks, or trying to say something that's not true, we will correct the record," he said at the time.

"But we have no intention of continuing a narrative of the past. Our narrative is for the future."

Fast forward to the fall sitting, which got underway a month ago.

The blame game continues.

Opposition takes aim

It's been a fallback line for Public Works Minister Richard Mostyn on the Public Airports Act; for Energy Mines and Resources Minister Ranj Pillai on Bill C-17, and mining within municipalities; for Housing Minister Pauline Frost on a lack of affordable housing in the communities; and for Silver himself, on the state of Yukon's books.

"This deficit is a result of commitments made by the previous government, prior to last year's election. These commitments were significant ... and were not included in the budget for the last year," Silver said on Tuesday, as he tabled his ministerial statement on the 2016-17 public accounts. 

The opposition has taken to taunting the government.

"We asked a question about a specific Liberal commitment and the minister continues his blame game — which he's become quite proficient at here in this house," said Yukon Party MLA Scott Kent, at one point this week.

MLA Brad Cathers also articulated the exasperation from the official opposition benches. 

"It does seem that this government has adopted an attitude of, 'no one moves, no one gets hurt', and that in response to reasonable questions. Instead of actually answering the question, what we hear from the government is an attempt to play the 'blame game'," Cathers said. 

"There's only so long you can coast on the rhetoric that you're the new guy, and that the people before you really did a bad job."

NDP MLA Kate White also chimed in, after Silver's statement on public accounts. 

"I hope what we just witnessed is to be the final chapter of the 'it's not our fault, it was the previous government's fault' narrative," she said. 

White agreed that the previous government mismanaged the finances, but urged Silver to step up his game.

"It's time for this government to look ahead, because they can't keep living in the past. This government must take full responsibility for any decision it now makes," she said.

"Pointing fingers across to the previous government won't cut it anymore."

'We're dealing with cleaning up' 

Silver agreed that it's time to "look forward", but went on to defend his government.

"Everytime that the record from the past gets brought up again and gets misrepresented, well, we feel that we need to put into the Legislative Assembly the reality."

The next day, Minister Pillai again threw the ball in the Yukon Party's court. 

"On Bill C-17, we're dealing with cleaning up the work that was done by our friends across the way," he said.

"I don't want to continue to go into a blame game, but the reality is something happened over the last couple of years. Our friends across the way created that situation, we're left here to fix the problem."

Cathers was quick to retort.

"This government has been in office almost a year, and they spend most of their time pointing their finger at the previous government, while failing to take responsibility for their own actions," he said.

When will the Liberals stop accusing the former government of ineptitude and instead concentrate on the here and now?

There are three weeks left in the fall sitting — ample time for the Premier to adopt hakuna matata, and sally forth unburdened by another party's past.