As Harman Singh Kandola was growing up, his dad, Joginder, had an accounting office in Millbourne Mall. Many new Canadians came in looking for the Edmonton Mennonite Centre for Newcomers, which had an intake spot nearby.
Harman is now the chair of the board of the Newcomer Centre (the renamed Mennonite Centre). He sat on Edmonton’s Anti Racism Advisory Committee, co-founded the digital Punjabi news site, Baaz News, and is the regional president for the World Sikh Organization of Canada.
Harman believes that conversations about diversity and anti-racism are becoming more and more important.
“Now, what you see, especially in the past few months, is the tension against immigration is rising. We’ve been having this conversation at the Centre. It’s a conversation that led me to want to be on the City’s inaugural Anti-Racism Advisory Committee. This hate against immigrants — it’s not the society I grew up in Alberta. But, now, you definitely see the rising tension.”
His dad was a lawyer in India before starting over as a cab driver in Edmonton, then worked his way back up the professional chain. But, through it all, he instilled in his family the Sikh value that community service was paramount. His dad was also heavily involved with the NDP, running as a federal candidate in Edmonton Southeast, while, years later, Harman ran as a provincial Tory. (“I got shellacked,” he jokes.)
Harman has been a lawyer for nearly a decade, but, as COVID reduced office hours to zero, he thought he’d rather be a builder than always be in conflict. And, he wanted more time to spend on community work than on chasing billable hours.
“Edmonton has lower barriers to entry, so we have way more homebuilders. And a lot of the builders in Edmonton are great immigrant success stories. For me, the homebuilding industry is about equality. At the end of the day, you’re building to sell to somebody, and you’re judged by how many homes you sell.”
This article appears in the Nov/Dec 2024 issue of Edify
