Amarjeet Sohi

Amarjeet Sohi (born March 8, 1964) is a Canadian politician serving as the 36th and current mayor of Edmonton since October 26th, 2021.

Sohi was born in 1964 in the farming community of Banbhaura, Sangrur district in the Indian state of Punjab, to a Sikh family.

By the early 1980s, the Khalistan movement, led by Sikhs demanding a homeland for themselves within India, had become very active, attracting support from many of the Indian Sikh diaspora in Canada.

The movement soon developed into the Punjab insurgency, which polarised the Sikh community in Canada between Khalistani separatists and those supporting continued union with India.

Sohi was born in India and immigrated to Canada in 1981, initially working as a taxi driver in Edmonton.

Sponsored by an elder brother, he emigrated to Edmonton in 1981.

Initially speaking almost no English, Sohi took ESL classes and enrolled at Bonnie Doon Composite High School in Edmonton.

While working as a taxi driver in Edmonton, he joined a local Punjabi language literary society and became an actor and playwright in a Punjabi theatre group.

The agitation of the Sikhs in general further increased following the Indian Army's 1984 assault on the Harmandar Sahib complex and Akaal Takht, and the assassination of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards later that year.

This was followed by the bombing of Air India Flight 182 in 1985, which was linked to Canadian Khalistani militants.

While Sohi and his family opposed the human rights abuses committed by the Indian government, they rejected religious fundamentalism.

Describing himself as a "secular individual", Sohi did not wear a turban and grow his hair.

The theatre group Sohi was involved in also opposed both fundamentalism and the repressive actions of the Indian government.

He returned to India in 1988, where he was detained and accused of terrorism.

While in prison, he was subject to harsh treatment and solitary confinement.

After spending 21 months in prison, Sohi was released due to a lack of evidence.

Returning to Edmonton, he worked as a bus driver before entering politics.

In April 1988, Sohi returned to India to study with Punjabi playwright and reformer Gursharan Singh and to visit family in Punjab.

He soon joined an activist group advocating land reform in Bihar, one of India's poorest states.

That November, Sohi went to a village in Bihar to organize a local protest, but was arrested on November 15, the night before when police raided the village.

Sohi believed he was arrested due to his Sikh and Canadian background, which was linked with terrorism.

Immediately after his arrest, Sohi was taken to a local police station, where he was interrogated and tortured for the next week with repeated beatings, sleep deprivation and threats against his family.

When he told his story to a district magistrate who had arrived to question him, she believed him and stopped the interrogations, permitting him to present his case in court though he was denied legal counsel.

As Sohi had kept his Indian citizenship, he was denied access to Canadian diplomatic officers and held under India's Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA).

An anti-terrorism law passed as a result of the Punjab insurgency, it allowed suspects to be detained for up to two years without being charged.

State authorities falsely accused Sohi of being a trained Khalistan fundamentalist who had arrived in Bihar to train Naxalite insurgents, claiming that his arrest established the presence of an international terrorist network and that he had been arrested in possession of a gun and ammunition supplied by Pakistan; the state director general of police issued a statement to The Hindu to that effect.

After his court appearance, Sohi was transferred to Gaya Central Prison in the city of Gaya, where he was kept in solitary confinement for the next 18 months.

He was placed in a cell with a small window and no bed, and slept on a single blanket on the floor.

"The food was horrible. A couple of chapatis in the morning. Some lentil stew in the evening with a couple of rotis. No vegetables or any meat."

After four months, his father and brother were allowed to visit.

Sohi managed to maintain his reason by making friends with the prison guards, and got a message out to the local newspapers through one of them, announcing he was going on a hunger strike for better food and library privileges.

Sohi married his wife Sarbjeet in 1993.

Together they have one daughter, Seerat, a freelance basketball columnist.

Sohi was elected to the Edmonton City Council in the 2007 municipal election representing Ward 12, gaining his seat after finishing 4th place in the previous election.

Sohi previously sat as a Liberal member of Parliament (MP) and served in the federal Cabinet from 2015 to 2018 as the minister of infrastructure and communities, and from 2018 to 2019 as the minister of natural resources.

Following the 2015 federal election, he represented Edmonton Mill Woods in the House of Commons until his defeat in the 2019 election.

During that time, he served as minister of natural resources from 2018 to 2019 and minister of infrastructure and communities from 2015 to 2018.

After his federal defeat, Sohi announced his candidacy for mayor of Edmonton in the 2021 Edmonton municipal election.

He was elected as Edmonton's 36th mayor on October 18, 2021, becoming the first visible minority to serve as mayor.

Jyoti Gondek was elected mayor of Calgary on the same day, with both Sohi and Gondek jointly sharing status as Canada's first Punjabi mayors of major cities.