Experienced but untested: Who is Yukon's new leader?

The politician heading for the Yukon's highest office has been many things: a math teacher, a musician, the Liberals' lone man on the ground. Entering the high-pressure position of premier, however, Sandy Silver remains an untested leader.

On Monday, Nov. 7, he catapulted the Yukon Liberal Party from single-seat obscurity to a majority of 11.

But who is he? And what could he bring to Yukon's highest office?

Beginnings

Sidney Alexander Silver, 47, comes from small business roots: his father and his grandfather before him owned and operated a drycleaning, laundry and radio repair business in Antigonish, N.S.

As a kid, he played basketball, raced motorcycles and played guitar in the basement.

He earned a degree in mathematics (with a minor in psychology) from St. Francis Xavier University, followed by a teaching degree from the University of Maine.

Like many who now call Yukon home, Silver came north with no defined plan. He had a friend who had moved here and raved about the place.

"He said 'I can't describe it, I can't describe it. You've just gotta come up.' And that's all I needed."

So Silver and a buddy, another teacher, drove across the country, arriving in Whitehorse in August, 1996.

They offered to coach basketball at F.H. Collins Secondary, and Silver says they were hired 'on the spot' to work as substitute teachers.

Silver taught for two years in Whitehorse before moving to Dawson to teach high school math. 

"I knew within a month... that Dawson was home."

Over the next 18 years, Silver put down roots in his adopted hometown, tutoring high school students, coaching basketball, volleyball and badminton, and volunteering with the Dawson City Music Festival and Dawson City Fire Department, among other organizations.

He's a musician (guitar and drums) and played with the The Pointer Brothers at "The Pit," as well as at Diamond Tooth Gerties.

Into the fray

What propelled the volunteer and math teacher to run for office in 2011?

"I wanted to be a voice in Whitehorse for Dawson, as opposed to the other way around," he says.

Little could Silver have guessed that, shortly after running successfully to be a constituency MLA, he would be the leader of the Yukon Liberals.

The 2011 Liberal train-wreck, under the leadership of Arthur Mitchell, saw the party lose its status as the official opposition and plummet to just two seats. Silver and Vuntut Gwitch'in incumbent Darius Elias were the only Liberals elected.

He recalls speaking with a close friend when the results came in election night five years ago. 

"We just looked at each other and said 'we can look at this two ways: either we just got destroyed or, whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger. There's now other opportunities here."

Silver says his first objective was to work for his constituency, but he liked the idea of being leader.

"I'm a student of game theory. You owe it to yourself to be able to consider every variable as a new day dawns," he says.

"As of that day, you're now calculating, you're thinking 'well, here's new variables, here's what you have to consider as of today.' And you put it into long-term mode, and you also realize you have a job to do."

Less than six months later, the Liberal caucus was sliced in half when Elias was unofficially nudged out to sit as an independent.

'A tumultuous time'

Were there some dark days for the political newbie, sitting alone, struggling to hold the Liberal brand above water?

"Yes, of course, absolutely. You're in a bad situation here, being the third party. You start thinking all this stuff, you know, it's hard not to think those things."

No doubt Silver made a tempting target for the ruling Yukon Party: if they could induce him to cross the floor, they could regain the Klondike seat, which had been an embarrassing loss for the party that claimed to be the miners' voice.

Did the Yukon Party dangle a cabinet post, and a new Dawson recreation centre as bait?

Silver doesn't want to talk about it. 

Although he admits, "it was a tumultuous time. And it was a time to make decisions." 

Silver says he found support from his friends in Dawson.

"They said 'we voted for you, you got the most votes of anybody in the legislative assembly for a reason, and you're going to do good things. Use this as an opportunity.' And I woke up the next day and I haven't had a doubt since."

That's not to say he expected to leapfrog his party from one seat to 11 in a single election. If someone had suggested it five years ago, "I wouldn't have thought the odds were good," he says.

Leadership questions

Then there's the topic of leadership. It's difficult to demonstrate your skill as a leader when you've been a general with no troops.

Silver was able to attract strong candidates to the Liberal banner, as witnessed in his majority win. But the campaign itself proved uneventful, except for news that the Liberal candidate for Whitehorse Centre was being investigated for improprieties in handling proxy votes.

Silver initially refused to talk about the issue and was criticized by the media and the other parties. He told the CBC just days before the election that he would stand behind his candidate. 

That was the first test for Silver. There will be many more in the months and years ahead.

By Silver's self-estimation, he's a natural leader and has shown skill at taking charge. Above all, he says he has faith in his systematic approach to leading.

"You're going to make good decisions and you're going to make some that you wish you didn't, but if you follow that system, that allows you to reduce all the variables down to 'you made the best decision with the information you had at the time'... I have confidence in that. It's worked for me all my life.

"I know that this is something that I haven't done before, but I am very, very confident in my approach to solving problems." 

For now, we'll just have to take his word for it.