Progressive Conservative member of the Alberta legislature Manmeet Bhullar was killed in a car crash Monday on the Queen Elizabeth II Highway while driving from Calgary to Edmonton.

Bhullar was a trailblazer. He was the first turbaned Sikh cabinet minister in the Alberta’s legislature.
Serving the constituency of Calgary Greenway, he was elected to office at the age of 28.

His sudden passing comes a shock to all who knew him and to all whose lives he touched.

A young political and community leader with many accomplishments, Bhullar was most recently active in helping the plight of minorities in Afghanistan. He called upon Canadian families to sponsor Sikhs and Hindus in the war torn country where they are often targeted for persecution.

Comment from Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi
I am utterly gutted to hear of the sudden passing of Manmeet Singh Bhullar.

A public servant, a true warrior for fairness and justice, a big man with a giant heart, a friend.
Manmeet’s accomplishments are well-known. He was a powerful community advocate from a young age and first elected to the Alberta legislature at 28. He was brave and unrelenting in his role, particularly when it came to forcefully advocating for children in care – the least powerful people in our society.

And this was his true calling – a man who defined integrity, who was genuine in everything he did, who never stopped fighting so that everyone could live a life of dignity.
I always looked forward to our long lunches over vegetarian Hakka Indian food and chai in our neighbourhood, talking politics and community and religion and pluralism and life. He was one of the finest men I have ever met in politics, or anywhere.

On our last lunch, he told me about how being in opposition wasn’t all bad – it gave him the time and capacity to work on issues that were very close to him, including the plight of Sikhs seeking to escape Afghanistan.

I will miss him so much. We all will.

And all of us are reaching out to his family and friends now. We will be there for you now the way he was always there for us.
In my faith tradition, when we hear of a death in the community, we say "Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un", which means “to Allah (God) we belong and to him we shall return.” It seems right to say that to a man of such deep, abiding, and unshakeable faith.

Rest in peace, my brother.

Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh