Herb Dhaliwal

Harbance Singh (Herb) Dhaliwal, PC is a Canadian politician and businessman.

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

Prime Minister Jean Chrétien recommended Dhaliwal's appointment to Cabinet (the first Indian-Canadian to become a federal cabinet minister) 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. Allegations were 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.

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.

Dhaliwal is chairman of National Green Biomed Ltd., a medical marijuana producer that donated $1 million in 2015 for health research into medical cannabis at the University of British Columbia, and also spoke about decriminalization of cannabis by the Justin Trudeau federal government.

Born in India at Chiheru, Punjab in 1952, Dhaliwal's family emigrated to Vancouver when he was six. He attended John Oliver Secondary School, graduating in 1972.

Herb's first marriage was to Amrit Dhaliwal, who died in 2004 after suffering from cancer. Herb has three children from his first marriage, Andrea, Justin and Jessica.