Yukon Personalised License Plates

Although it is not clear when the practice started, for many years leading up to the mid-1960s, select Territorial employees were allowed to purchase a specific licence plate number between 2 and 25 (No. 1 was reserved for the Commissioner) for use on their private vehicle.

On December 13, 1965, the Territory Council passed Motion No. 39, which held "that in the opinion of the Council the Registrar of Motor Vehicles be instructed to put aside a block of licence plates numbered one to two hundred and fifty for those persons who are desirous of obtaining a licence number of their own choice. It is further requested that this policy be implemented in 1966 and that no additional fee be attached to this request."

This was subsequently amended so that the bloc of licence plates that would be made available to the public were numbered 1500 to 2000, and would be distributed on a first come, first served basis. Anyone desiring such a number was advised to write the Registrar of Motor Vehicles indicating the number they desired.

On April 27, 1966, licence plate No. 1961 was requested by J.W. McGinnis.

With the release of this relatively high numbered bloc of plates, the Commission requested that the practice of allowing Territory employees to obtaining plates numbered 2 to 25 cease until such time as a satisfactory way of fairly allocating these plates could be established. Despite this direction, the No. 2 plate was issued to Ms. Victoria Faulkner in 1966 in recognition of her many years of service to the Yukon Territory.

Licence Plate No. 2 - Victoria Faulkner
Between 1919 and 1960, Victoria Faulkner was the secretary for nine different Yukon Commissioners, the Yukon’s chief government official. Between appointments or when Commissioners were absent – sometimes for months at time – Miss Faulkner ran most of the territorial government. In later years, she worked for the Historic Sites Branch of the Canadian government. Her extensive research contributed to the designation of Dawson City as a National Historic Site. The Women’s Centre in Whitehorse was named after this remarkable woman (Yukon Archives).
		These plates were acquired as part of an intact run, so it is assumed that Ms. Faulkner must have registered the No. 2 prior to the introduction of the reserve block in 1966.

The Registrar of Motor Vehicles, H.J. Taylor, was less than enthusiastic about this proposal as it would require issuing plates out of sequence - something the Auditor General's auditors had "emphatically" discouraged - and would create an administrative burden of having to advise applicant's if an number had already been issued, as well as an additional cost to the Department of having to mail plates to motorists who otherwise would have come in to receive their plates from the local Motor Vehicle office. Taylor was also concerned that this Motion would necessitate keeping 20 open boxes of plates at the main issuing office and that available space did not permit this. Nevertheless, the program went ahead for 1966.

Not surprisingly, the Registrar received numerous requests from the public, including multiple requests for the No. 1898, 2000 ... One of the more interesting exchanges was between the Registrar and John Livesey of Livesey's Hi-Way Service and a Yukon Councilor who had requested the No. 1 plate. The Registrar gently reminded Livesey that "I regret to advise that I am unable to comply with your request for licence #1 as that plate is always reserved for the Commissioner. When you have attained that position I will be happy to issue you licence #1."