Q+A | Outgoing Whitehorse Mayor Laura Cabott looks back on an eventful term

It's been a busy three-year term for Whitehorse Mayor Laura Cabott.

Along with the daily challenges of running a rapidly-growing city that's facing an ongoing housing crunch, a substance-use crisis, a changing climate and aging infrastructure, Cabott also found herself dealing with some unpredictable emergencies during her tenure: escarpment landslides, a wildfire in 2023 that threatened the edge of the city, frequent telecommunications outages, and more.

Now she's ready to pass the torch. After one term as mayor, and a term before as city councillor, Cabott is not running in this month's city election. 

She spoke to guest host Russ Knutson on Yukon Morning on Wednesday, about her term in the mayor's office, and the "reality check" awaiting the next city council.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.   

You've been involved with council for six years. What were the highlights for you, as mayor?

Well, I think at the end of the day, it'll be the citizens that will make the determination about what I've been able to achieve as mayor. But let me just hit a few of them.

I think we've turned the corner on transit. It's always been a pretty good service that we've provided, but now it's even better. We are meeting targets, we are exceeding ridership, we're breaking records almost every month. And you know, that comes with investing in it, that comes with more routes, more buses, more drivers. At the end of the day, we've got more riders. So I'm pretty proud about that. We've added Sunday service, and holiday service.

Another big one I would say is, in addition to providing services to citizens that they expect and that we're there to provide, we were dealt a few emergencies in the last three years. And I would say, I feel that with my leadership that I provided a pretty steady helm there. We were giving information, communicating with the public, and dealing with these emergencies — not just on a safety sort of level, to ensure that people were safe, but fiscally responsible and also always looking for a long-term solution. I'm talking about Robert Service Way, the fire that was out in the Ibex [Valley] area, the loss of power that impacted a lot of residents in Whistle Bend in December a couple of years ago, telecommunications outages.

So those are things that when you set off to run for mayor, they're not really on your list of things that you know that you're going to have to tackle. But I think those are some things that the city council — not just me — and administration were able to to overcome.

Are there things that you didn't do, that were on your mind as you came in and had a vision for what you wanted to achieve?

Housing, I'd say, is still — we come up short. Now when I ran, I didn't say that I was gonna solve the housing problem and was gonna build a whole bunch of homes. I said I was gonna tackle the housing problem, and I think we have tackled that.

Look, we've got a master plan now up in the old Takhini tank farm, Valleyview south. We have a master plan and subdivision approval at Range Point, which is a great project between Kwanlin Dün and YG [Yukon government]. We finished the official community plan, which identifies one of the next two neighbourhoods in this city, either off Long Lake Road on the other side of the Yukon River, or up between McLean Lake and Copper Ridge.

We got a lot of money from the federal government to accelerate some of the housing. We're this fall demolishing the old blue building across from the old Canadian Tire, the old municipal services building. And it's been zoned for high-density residential, probably some commercial at the bottom.

So those are, I would say, examples of tackling the housing problem. But there's still a lot left on the plate for the next council to move ahead, in the housing department.

You had a chance to take that on by running again, but you chose not to. What's behind your decision not to throw your name in this time?

I've been on council for six years. I've absolutely enjoyed my run. This is probably one of the best cities in Canada. It is growing at a fast pace, we have a good economy here, we have diversity, we have good relationships, I think, with the First Nations and with other levels of government.

But you know, it's a commitment. So every Monday night you're showing up at council, and there's lots of meetings in between, and evening meetings, weekend meetings. So it does take away a little bit of your private life and I was prepared to do that for six years. Now, going into the next election, it's a four-year term and I just didn't feel like I had 100 per cent energy to do another four years. Plus, you know, there are other projects that I would like to do.

The new council coming in, almost everybody by the looks of it will be new. What are they walking into, in terms of the the big challenges facing the city in the next four years?

First off, I think there's a reality check. The big cheques that we used to get from the federal government, territorial government — those pots are not there anymore. There was a recent announcement that the Canada Community-Building Fund, formerly gas tax money, will still be there but that's only about $10 million a year. And heck, I mean it costs us $10 million to just replace the Takhini trunk line, the sewage line there.

So there is less money to go around. And I think the next council needs to be very realistic, prioritize the services that we are mandated to do and do those well, because we have a good reputation for doing that.

Snow clearing — if we get another "snowmageddon" that we had in the two previous years, we're going to be in trouble if we don't have the money to deal with that. We have aging infrastructure, as does every other municipality. We have a $60 million price tag on a new water treatment facility. We still need to come up with $60 million to do the work on Robert Service Way. And we have, you know, old pipe and water, sewer in the ground. Plus, we have a growing population. We need more new roads, we need more active transportation infrastructure. Those things cost money. So that's the reality check.

The other couple of things that I would say for the next council is, focus on the things that we are responsible to do. Work with our partners on other areas that aren't necessarily our responsibility, but stay focused.

Lastly, I would say it's really important to have good intergovernmental relationships. You cannot do this on our own. Sure, we're a capital city, but we have a population of about 33,000. We have a low tax base. You need to have good relationships. Doesn't matter if it's an NDP, Liberal, Conservative government — be respectful, work with your partners, be assertive, call them out when you need to. But you're in the long game here to have a relationship with people that respect you, that understand you, that will come to the table and work with you to try and solve some of the challenges ahead.

Well, a whole new crop of city councillors and a new mayor coming in, it'll be interesting to see how they do.

Yes — best of luck to all of them. It's great to see people running, not only in Whitehorse, in the communities. I always love a good campaign so it's hard to sit back, but I wish everybody the best.