Frederick Fraser (1895 – 1990)

Frederick Fraser grew up in Revelstoke, British Columbia and was educated in the Vancouver area. He served in the 72nd Battalion and then the Royal Flying Corp during the First World War. He studied law and was called to the bar in 1919. He practiced law until 1929 when he started work for the Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting Company in Manitoba. He served in the Royal Canadian Air Force in the Second World War.¹⁾ He worked for several years as Mining Recorder and Stipendiary Magistrate in Yellowknife, and then in Ottawa as Assistant Division Chief of the Lands Division in the Department of Resources and Development.²⁾ The federal Department of Mines and Resources had the responsibility of administering the Yukon. In 1951, the department sent Fraser to guide the proposed Workmen’s Compensation ordinance through the territorial council. The deputy minister, H.A, Young, asked Fraser to report on the state of the Yukon government and Fraser’s report was unflattering. He was sent back before the end of the year to put the administration in order.³⁾ He became the Commissioner and Chief Executive of the Yukon for 1951/52.⁴⁾

Frederick Fraser was the first of a new type of Yukon commissioner, well versed in the Ottawa administration and its desires for the north. Within days of his arrival he organized weekly meetings with department heads to discuss policy and procedure, and he planned a reorganization to clarify the lines of authority and distribute the workload more fairly. His first annual report recognized the split between federal and territorial responsibility. Then he restored a position of territorial secretary, not staffed since the gold rush, and appointed his own executive assistant, W.M. Cameron, a federal employee. The territorial council objected.⁵⁾

The major problems stemmed from Andrew Gibson’s term when government finances were insufficient and there was not enough communication between the Yukon and Ottawa.⁶⁾ Gibson was the Commissioner of the Yukon in 1950 and 1951. The 1948 financial agreement with Ottawa was underfunded at an estimated annual $500,000 to $600,000 and an actual amount of almost $1,500,000 in 1951/52. The bulk of the increase was ascribed to municipal administration, roads and public works, and health and welfare. Dawson and Whitehorse municipal governments were established in 1950 and greater social problems were a result of the post-war boom period. Ottawa’s financial committee decided that Yukon welfare costs were the biggest culprit as they were out of proportion to the population. Fraser attacked welfare with reforming zeal. Payment arrangements were altered, there were compulsory interviews with territorial agents, and a request for assistance had to be renewed every six months. Rising child welfare costs were also an issue that he delt with by ruling that government would only accept responsibility for fees at hostels if a child was placed in an institution by court order or with government approval. He also set up the I.O.D.E to incorporate the Children’s Aid Society which handled much of Yukon’s child welfare work with a social worker and a government grant until 1960.⁷⁾

Fraser’s response to Yukon critics was that Ottawa decided policy and he would not debate these decisions with Yukoners. Fraser expected to be consulted by Ottawa, but decisions generally arrived by letters and telegrams. Ottawa’s financial committee recommended local taxation. Fraser did not agree, and he and Councillor Gordon Lee were able to travel to Ottawa to discuss terms for the next agreement. Ottawa thought he did not consult enough on policy and program changes, and his administration disagreed with his decision to fire two Whitehorse teachers. He closed some popular Whitehorse gambling clubs and forced old-timers to go out of the Yukon for care for which he received harsh criticism in the Yukon press. Fraser applied for and received a transfer, and after presiding over the last Yukon Council to sit in Dawson, he left the Klondike in November 1952.⁸⁾ Fraser was blunt and not well liked. George Brown was sent up in 1952 to calm everyone down, and he served as Commissioner until 1955.⁹⁾

After Fraser returned to Ottawa he served as chief of the territorial division in the Northern Affairs and Natural Resources department until he retired in 1955.¹⁰⁾