Amarjeet Sohi

In the October 2019 Election, Amarjeet was defeated by Tim Uppal.

Sohi took over the Natural Resources profile from Jim Carr on July 18, 2018.

He previously held the Infrastructure and Communities portfolio from 2015 to 2018, and served as a member of the Edmonton City Council representing Ward 12, gaining his seat in the 2007 Edmonton municipal election after finishing 4th place in the previous election, narrowly beating out strong community advocate Chinwe Okelu following the retirement of Terry Cavanagh.

During his time on Council, Sohi has received several awards in recognition of his community leadership. He has received the Edmonton Interfaith Advocate Award and the John Humphrey Centre's Human Rights Advocate Award for promoting welcoming and inclusive communities. In 2015, Sohi received the Man of Honour, Exemplary Leadership Award from the Centre to End All Sexual Exploitation in recognition of his work to end gender discrimination and violence and the Edmonton Mennonite Centre for Newcomers Recognizing Immigrant Success in Edmonton (RISE) Lifetime Achievement award.

In February 2015, Sohi was acclaimed as the Liberal candidate for Parliament in the newly created Edmonton Mill Woods riding. Sohi officially launched his campaign in June 2015 at a large rally with Justin Trudeau in Mill Woods. Sohi's campaign emphasized the importance of federal leadership to address big-city and infrastructure challenges. Sohi was also sharply critical of the Harper government's approach to citizenship, multiculturalism, and immigration policy.

On October 19, 2015, after a longer than average 78-day federal election campaign, Sohi was declared elected as the Member of Parliament for Edmonton Mill Woods. Per the initial count, Sohi received 41.2% of the popular vote and won by a margin of 79 votes. Conservative candidate Tim Uppal successfully argued for a judicial recount of the results. The recount was held on October 29 and increased Sohi's margin of victory to 92 votes.

Sohi was appointed Minister of Infrastructure and Communities in Justin Trudeau's first cabinet on November 4, 2015.

After completing two terms as a Councillor, it was widely acknowledged that Sohi was contemplating a mayoral run in the 2013 municipal election. Sohi ultimately announced that he would not enter the race and would instead seek re-election for his Ward 12 seat.

In Amarjeet Sohi's first municipal campaign 2004 Edmonton municipal election, he finished fourth behind incumbents Dave Thiele and Terry Cavanagh, along with Chinwe Okelu. Sohi's second campaign was successful, and he won a Council seat in Ward Six in 2007. On the City Council, Sohi has served as a member of the Edmonton Police Commission, as Vice President of the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association, and as Council sponsor for Safedmonton, a citywide committee working on community solutions for crime prevention. Sohi carried this work forward as advisor to the REACH Edmonton Council for Safe Communities.

Indian and Canadian journalists and activists, including members of Amnesty International, soon picked up Sohi's story. Through Conservative MP and human rights defender David Kilgour, Sohi's brother and sister-in-law pressured the Canadian government to exercise influence. The Canadian intelligence services informed the Indian government that Sohi posed no threat. Attempting to save themselves embarrassment, the Bihar police persisted in claiming Sohi to be a terrorist, variously charging him with links to Pakistani terrorists, Naxalite insurgents and to the Tamil Tigers. Finally, the 1990 legislative elections in Bihar brought a change of government, and a new state prosecutor reviewed Sohi's case, ordering it to be dismissed as there was "a lack of evidence against Mr. Sohi and also his prosecution is against [the] public policy of the state." After 21 months in prison, 18 of them in solitary, Sohi was released to his parents' home in Punjab on July 9, 1990. After thanking those in Bihar who had helped him, Sohi returned to Edmonton.

In 1988, Sohi returned to India to study with a noted Punjabi playwright and reformer, Gursharan Singh. He soon joined an activist group advocating land reform in Bihar, one of India's poorest states and dominated by large landowners. That November, Sohi went to a village in Bihar to organise a local protest, but was arrested the night before when police raided the village. "When they saw me, a Sikh, there from Punjab and from Canada, they said, 'We must have a terrorist here.'," Sohi recalled.

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. The agitation of the Sikhs in general further increased following the Indian Army's 1984 assault on the Harmandar Sahib complex and Akaal Takht, the holiest Sikh Gurdwara and temporal seat of the Sikhs, which resulted in the deaths of many Sikh civilians in addition to armed militants. assassination of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards that October acting in their own individual capacity to avenge the operation. This was followed by the bombing of Air India Flight 182 over the Atlantic Ocean in 1985, which killed all on board and also thought to be in retaliation for the operation and the mass killing of Sikhs that had followed Indira's assassination.

Amarjeet Sohi PC (born March 8, 1964) is an Indo-Canadian politician, who served as the Member of Parliament for Edmonton Mill Woods from 2015 until 2019, and was the federal Minister of Natural Resources.

Sohi was born in 1964 in the farming community of Banbhaura, Sangrur district in the Indian state of Punjab, to a Sikh family. 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 High School in Edmonton. He joined a local Punjabi literary society and became an actor and playwright in a Punjabi theatre group.