City councillor Ted Laking has announced he will not run in the October municipal election.
He is the second high-profile council member to announce he or she will not be running again following current Mayor Laura Cabott announcing last Wednesday she will not seek a second term.
A first-term councillor, Laking said today he “leaves the City of Whitehorse with a reputation of being able to successfully collaborate with staff and colleagues to move priority files towards completion.
“The privilege of representing the taxpayers of Whitehorse has been a rewarding experience. Meeting with individuals over the last several years to learn about their perspectives, challenges, and priorities has taught me so much about how effective representation can improve the lives of our citizens,” he added.
“While this council has accomplished a lot in under three years, my family has determined it is time for me to seek out new challenges and opportunities while still helping our community grow,” he said.
He told The Yukon Star this morning that in fewer than three years, he successfully brought forward and pushed several initiatives associated with his 2021 election platform.
He singled out several items he is particularly proud of.
“I made it a priority to end the wasteful construction of a brand-new luxurious city hall. For seven years, the proposed new city hall had been going over-budget, with an initial estimate of $9.7 million eventually ballooning to over $26 million by the end of 2021.
“Since the city hall issue, the City of Whitehorse has run into several unexpected major capital projects that have strained its fiscal capacity, such as the landslides on Robert Service Way, the imminent failure of the Takhini wastewater trunkline, and the early failure of the crosstown water main. If the city hall project had not been cancelled, then the City of Whitehorse would have less money, resources, and capacity to address these critical priorities.”
He added, “The cancellation of the new city hall was great news for taxpayers. Throughout the election, there had been significant public concern from taxpayers about that project going over-budget. Bringing their concerns to the forefront and giving them a voice is why I raised the issue of the project continuing to go significantly over-budget and pushed for it to be cancelled.”
Laking pointed to snow removal as another item he was happy to tackle.
“This is a top issue for a significant amount of taxpayers in the city right now. I think it’s clear that despite our best efforts and despite the hard-working crews that we have, and they are working their tails off, we’re not only struggling to keep up, we’re struggling to keep our head above water here,” the councillor said.
“I’ve seen small cars just in my area where I live in Whitehorse, getting stuck trying to get out of their driveways. This is particularly going to be a concern if there starts to be major melts here, coming. I mean, even some of the four-wheel-drive trucks I see around town are getting stuck in some of these ruts that have formed due to the snowfall.”
In 2022, Laking was elected as the president of the Association of Yukon Communities (AYC), a role he left this spring.
During his time as president, he said, he “made it a priority to advocate for Yukon communities on the national stage to ensure that there was adequate federal funding and supported emerging priorities such as costs associated with climate change.”
This work also saw Laking meet with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the summer of 2023, where he raised the ongoing challenge of opioids abuse in Yukon communities and the need for more support from the federal government.
During Laking’s tenure as president of the AYC, the Yukon government also agreed to begin renegotiations of the Comprehensive Municipal Grant. Once updated, that vital grant will provide increased funding to the City of Whitehorse “to ensure that it can continue to sustainably provide services to its citizens,” Laking said.