Alberta

   ELECTED

 

NRI Deepak Obhrai is confident of winning elections 3RD TIME again
as Member of Parliament from the Calgary


Calagary, May 28., 2004
NRI Internet Group
Mr. Ashok Mehta

Mr. Deepak Obhrai was first elected Member of Parliament for the Calgary East Constituency in 1997 and was re-elected in November 2000.

Deepak Obhrai is a Calgary businessman and a former City of Calgary employee. He is the owner of a company formed to explore joint venture opportunities in the overseas markets. His wife gave up her business in Calgary to help him in the campaign. Obhrai is a full-time politician who has been senior critic for international affairs, a cabinet post in the Conservative Party. He has three children.

The "Punjabi Hindu", as he describes himself, was born in Tanzania and at 16, his mother packed off the impressionable youth to India to study at Daly College, Indore, Madhya Pradesh. But Obhrai lived with his 'masi', or maternal aunt, and gradually got used to the Indian way of life in two years.

He worked as a taxi driver and a bus operator, a labourer before going on to become a Conservative member of the Canadian parliament from Calgary, Alberta. Obhrai came to Canada in 1977, faced the trials and tribulations of a new immigrant. He faced discrimination when he first came to Canada.

He enrolled for an accountant's course and since then has fought against discrimination. Soon he and his wife Neena became the owners of three dry-cleaning businesses and two rental properties. In the 1990s, he became active in community affairs and entered politics.

Obhrai was a member of the Team Canada Trade Mission to India in January 1996, as a business delegate. He is involved with his community and is the past president of the India-Canada Association, Monterey Community Association and the Hindu Society of Calgary and Vice-President of the National Indo/Canadian Council.

Mr. Obhrai accompanied the Governor General on a State Visit to India and Pakistan (1998) and Africa, including Tanzania (1999) where he was born. Mr. Obhrai attended a meeting of African Development Bank directors in Cairo and acted as an election observer on behalf of the Government of Canada in Chiappas, Mexico. As International Trade critic, Mr. Obhrai participated in trade missions to Algeria, Argentina, Chile, China, India, Mexico, Morocco, Spain, Uruguay and Washington. He was also a member of the Canadian delegation that attended World Trade Organization negotiations in Seattle and Doha. Mr. Obhrai attended the 59th United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR), which was recently held in Geneva.


Mr. Obhrai also visited Southeast Asia and South Asia on a Foreign Affairs Committee tour to study the Canadian relationship with the Muslim World.

Mr. Obhrai just recently participated in a delegation with the Minister of International Cooperation for an international Afghanistan Conference in Berlin on 31 March and 1 April 2004. They joined more than 60 delegations - including all EU, G8 and NATO states, as well as Afghanistan's neighbours and other countries with a particular commitment to Afghanistan.

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