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undramatic style suited the public’s need for stability and certainty.
In interview after interview, he emphasized addressing issues
of mental health, addiction, poverty and homelessness, and for
this he won the 2021 election handily. But the years that followed
have been complicated, to say the least.
“The electorate is just grumpy,” Dave Cournoyer, a longtime
commentator on Alberta’s municipal and provincial politics, told
me. “They’re frustrated with the state of the city, with inflation,
with rising property taxes, with affordable housing and probably
some leftover frustration coming out of the pandemic restrictions.
Whoever became mayor was going to bear the brunt of all that
frustration.”
Part of the issue, says Cournoyer, is that Sohi was immediately
saddled with extremely large capital projects, such as the LRT
expansion and significant infrastructure repairs. He also inherited
issues such as bike lane bickering, which were small in fiscal
terms but large in the public consciousness (and grew larger as
the populace returned to office work). The UCP government has
also taken to increasingly sticking its nose into municipal affairs
on big and small ticket items (including Bill 20: the Municipal
Affairs Statutes Amendment Act, 2024, which allows for party af-
filiations on municipal election ballots for the first time this fall)
and that, says Cournoyer, has not made council’s job any easier.
None of these things were Sohi’s fault or idea particularly, and
some of them he has had no control over, but as mayor, they are
nevertheless his responsibility and therefore his problem.
Sohi’s methods and manner may not have helped manage his
quandary. Perhaps during the pandemic his “steady hand on the
wheel” approach was appreciated, but something more combative
and bolder might have served him better. Stephen Mandel and
Don Iveson were big personalities. Sohi was not. He wants to be
collaborative and inclusive, but perhaps trying to work collec-
tively with so many diverse interest groups made it seem that he
didn’t have any ideas or juice of his own, that he was a bureaucrat
forever reacting rather than a leader blazing a trail. “There just
never seemed to be enough direction from the mayor’s office,”
says Cournoyer. “And there’s no doubt that his time as mayor
wore down his reputation and probably cost him more than it
helped him during the federal campaign.”
Much of the country gravitated to Carney’s Liberals on the
promise of stability, moderation and, you could argue, the status
quo in the face of Trump’s tariffs and "51st State" taunts, but that
was not the political story out here. Albertans wanted change,
and Sohi, ever the moderate, was not seen as an agent of change.
“I am not driven by ideologies,” Sohi told
me the week before the election. “Regardless of which party, a
politician’s focus should always remain people, to serve them
and make their lives better. I’m a good example that when you
actually invest in people, you not only help them to be successful
in their life but you are building their capacity to give back to
your community.”
Those who have become close with Sohi over the years have
often remarked on his compassion, his concern for community,
inclusion and his belief in equality. When he has spoken on the
campaign trail during his numerous runs for elected office, his
words have often carried a thoughtfulness and rarely sounded
rote or canned. And accepting that it’s hard to ever truly know for
certain, the warmth he radiates in person seems authentic.
Yet for all his ability to connect with people, for all his laudable
impulses to serve, for all that his nature seems genuine, the
reality is that he has failed multiple times over his career to
ignite voters as a group. One has to wonder if his integrity, his
principles, his values — to be brief, whatever essential decency
you ascribe to him — have made him a good politician rather
than a successful one. The two are rarely the same.
Politics is a ruthless blood sport. Roughly since Pericles of
Athens, politicians have been telling voters on the campaign trail
that it’s their job to represent all people and not just the ones
who voted for them; that we only succeed when we all work
together; and that community comes first. (Oh, and that they
are agents of change.) Sometimes they might even believe those
things. But mostly politics and political races are about win-
ning. As I recall Rod Love, Ralph Klein’s long-time chief of staff,
telling me when I interviewed him many years ago, “Principles in
politics are wonderful, but they don’t mean fuck all if you’re not
in power. If you’re in power, great, then go ahead and talk all day
about your principles. But if you’re not in power, fuck off.”
The expletive-free version of that is, “nice guys finish last.”
Amarjeet Sohi, by all accounts a nice guy, hasn’t always finished
last and has won often enough that his principles and values have
had a positive impact on his community. But why, then, does
his political career as a councillor, member of Parliament and
especially as mayor feel faintly underwhelming? Is it him? Or is
it us?
The answer, of course, is both. We regularly bemoan the
polarized, tribal, nasty, shallow state of politics and yet when
candidates of substance and honesty raise their hands, too often
we consider them dull and uninspiring. Sohi has always operated
generally in a spirit of modesty. But is modesty a virtue in the
political sphere? Or is it just dull? Do we want people in power
whom we trust or who excite us?
All we know is that the numbers are the numbers and they
indicate that voters increasingly viewed Sohi more as a political
relic than a vehicle of forward progress. “Currently,” says Cour-
noyer, “the most valuable currency in politics is shamelessness.”
If true, that doesn’t bode well for centre-left candidate Andrew
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