Amarjeet Sohi is reflecting on the past four years as he enters the final few weeks of his four year term as Edmonton’s mayor.
“It has been the honour of my life to serve our city in this role,” Sohi said, adding there is a lot to be proud of.
He said recreational facilities have better hours, with opening libraries on Sundays and extending pools hours.
“We have rebuilt and established our public services, such as public transit and snow removal.”
Sohi said he is very proud of the work council did on equity and antiracism.
Sohi also believes the actions of the current council will have an impact on how the city is shaped for years to come.
“I think when we look back 10 years from now, we’ll see denser housing types in our city, more diversity of housing choices in mature neighbourhoods, more effective and reliable public transit once the LRT is completed,” he said.
“I also see a lot of potential for the downtown — particularly housing downtown — there are close to 5,000 new new housing units that we are anticipating over the next decade, including towers that currently under construction and the deal with Oilers Entertainment Group to build more homes north of Rogers Place.”
There has been some challenges for Sohi.
Pundits have said he is an unpopular mayor.
“I would say we had to make some very unpopular decisions in order to fix the foundation of this city, particularly with the financial foundation and how we grow,” Sohi said.
“I know that our efforts to encourage more housing development in mature neighbourhoods is not popular, but it is the necessary thing to do for the sustainability of our city financially, but also environmentally.
“We cannot continue to grow outwards.”
When it comes to taxes, Sohi stresses this council was elected during the COVID-19 pandemic, after taxes were frozen. This lead to struggles keeping up with inflation and maintain city services.
Taxes have gone up, with a nearly nine per cent increase last year.
There has also been concerns with how the city is moving forward with densification.
“I think the effect of that decision is going to be that moving forward, we have caught up on some of those underfunding. And moving forward, the city would not be required to raise taxes the way we had to, to the level that we had, because that was a decision that we needed to make to fix some of the mistakes or catching up on the lack of services or lack of investments in those services.”
Sohi said while not everyone has been happy with council’s decision, it has been necessary.
“I have always felt that a problem is in front of you, as elected officials, you have a responsibility to fix that problem.”
Sohi immigrated to Edmonton from India with his family in 1981. He attended Bonnie Doon High School and later worked as a bus driver in the city.
Sohi represented southeast Edmonton on city council for eight years after being elected in 2007.
In 2015, he made the move into federal politics as the MP for Edmonton Mill Woods. Sohi served as minister of Infrastructure and Communities from 2015 to 2018 and Minister of Natural Resources from 2018 to 2019. He served one term before losing his seat during the 2019 federal election.
He was elected Edmonton’s mayor in 2021 with 45 per cent of the vote.
Sohi, who ran a failed bid to return to Ottawa in last spring’s federal election, doesn’t know what is next for him — but he will be watching on Oct. 20 to see who the next mayor will be.
“We have done some good work. Not easy work, some difficult work, some unpopular decisions that we had to make, but they were the right decisions.”
“I hope that future councils will continue to lead based on what the city needs and not shy away from them. Making very important decisions for the future of our city.”
With files from Karen Bartko, Global News