Commissioner of the Yukon Territory

Commissioner of Yukon Commissaire du Yukon
Badge of the Commissioner of Yukon
Flag of the Commissioner of Yukon
Incumbent Angélique Bernard since 12 March 2018
Inaugural holder	James Morrow Walsh
Formation	August 17, 1897
Website	Official Website

The Commissioner of Yukon (French: Commissaire du Yukon) is the representative of the Government of Canada in the Canadian federal territory of Yukon. The commissioner is appointed by the federal government and, in contrast to the Governor-General of Canada or the Lieutenant Governors of the Canadian provinces, is not a viceroy and therefore not a direct representative of the Canadian monarch in the territory eo ipso.

The offices of Commissioner and Administrator were abolished in 1918. Office replaced by the Gold Commissioner who was responsible to the federal Minister of the Interior.

The positions of Gold Commissioner and Comptroller were combined in 1932 with the Comptroller being the title for the chief executive. The title was changed to "Controller" in 1936.

In 1948, the title of chief executive once again became Commissioner. By the 1960s, the Commissioner had formed an executive committee that included some members of the elected Territorial Council, in essence a cabinet. (By the mid 1970s, the Territorial Council was referring to itself as a Legislative Assembly, and its members MLAs rather than Councillors.) Beginning in 1978, Yukon had party government with a Government Leader.

In October 1979, federal minister Jake Epp (Indian Affairs and Northern Development) issued a letter, often known as the Epp letter, instructing the Commissioner to assume a role similar to that of a provincial Lieutenant-Governor, and devolving leadership of the day-to-day government to the majority leader of the legislative assembly (territorial council), to whom the Epp letter granted the authority to use the title Premier. At that time, the government leader added a fifth elected member to the committee, which became an executive council.