Herb Dhaliwal

Harbance Singh (Herb) Dhaliwal, PC (born December 12 1952) is a Canadian politician.

Born to a Sikh family in Punjab, India, Dhaliwal's family immigrated to Vancouver when he was six. He attended John Oliver Secondary School, graduating in 1972. After graduating from the University of British Columbia with a Bachelor of Commerce degree, he started a maintenance company out of his basement. He's a top level executive of Dynamic Facility Services Ltd.. He became a self-made millionaire with diversified business interests including transportation, maintenance and real estate development.

He was first elected to the Canadian House of Commons in the 1993 election as the Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) for Vancouver South.

Prime Minister Jean Chrétien appointed Dhaliwal to Cabinet (the first Indian-Canadian to become a federal cabinet minster) in 1997 as Minister of Revenue. In 1999, he became Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, and in 2002 he was appointed Minister of Natural Resources and Minister with political responsibility for British Columbia.

Dhaliwal was a firm supporter of Chrétien against Paul Martin's attempt to force the Liberal leader to retire. As a result, Martin's campaign team targeted Dhaliwal and successfully took over his riding association. Dhaliwal publicly denounced Martin's campaign team for this, and criticized them for restricting access to Liberal Party membership forms. Recently, allegations have been made by Warren Kinsella, among others, that Martin's team exploited the fact that Dhaliwal's wife was suffering from cancer, although Dhaliwal was not with his wife, but rather travelling out of the country on the date of his riding's annual general meeting which he lost.

When Chrétien announced his resignation, Dhaliwal briefly considered running in the 2003 Liberal leadership campaign, but decided against it. Several months later, he endorsed Martin for leader and said he would be willing to serve in a Martin cabinet. But on December 3, 2003, he announced that he would not be running for re-election. This was widely seen as an indication that Dhaliwal thought (or had been told) that, like virtually all of Chrétien's supporters, he would not be appointed to Martin's cabinet.

External links

* [http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/about/people/key/bio.asp?Language=E&query=83&s=M Federal Political biography from the Library of Parliament]