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Harbance Singh (Herb) Dhaliwal (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. After graduating from the University of British Columbia with a commerce degree he started a maintenance company out of his basement and eventually 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 Canadian election as the Liberal MP for Vancouver South.
Prime Minister Jean Chrétien appointed Dhaliwal to Cabinet (the first Indo-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 promoted to minister of natural resources and minister with political responsibility for British Columbia.
Dhaliwal was a firm supporter of Chrétien's 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 also criticized them for restricting access to Liberal Party membership forms.
When Chrétien announced his resignation Dhaliwal briefly considered running in the 2003 Liberal leadership convention 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.
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