Canada’s Alberta provincial government, on November 30, introduced a Bill to rename the Calgary-McCall constituency to Calgary-Bhullar-McCall in honour of the late MLA Manmeet Singh Bhullar. Manmeet Singh Bhullar was tragically killed in a highway crash in 2015.
The bill was tabled just a week after the sixth anniversary of Bhullar’s untimely death. Bhullar died in November 2015 at the age of 35 after being struck by a semi-truck on the Queen Elizabeth Highway near Red Deer when he stopped to help a stranded motorist.
Bhullar represented northeast Calgary for the Progressive Conservative party from 2008 until his death.
Bhullar created a record becoming the province’s youngest-ever MLA when he was first elected. He also served as the minister of Service Alberta, minister of infrastructure and minister of human services throughout his eight years in the legislature.
“He never forgot where he came from. … That was my favourite part about Manmeet,” said Government House Leader Jason Nixon.
“He was a northeast Calgary kid like myself. And was always very, very dedicated to that portion of his city. And it’s in my mind very exciting to see that a constituency that overlaps an area that he cared so much about will now be named after him.”
According to a report by Calgary Herald, Nixon, who introduced the bill, said the UCP felt the name change was “unfinished business.”
“I think for me and those who served with him, both those of us who are still here and those that served with him in the past, this is something that we wanted to do in the last boundary commission,” Nixon said. “The government of the day was, and I’m not criticizing this, but they just they didn’t see the need to do it at the time.”
Ifran Sabir, Calgary-McCall’s current MLA, took over Bhullar’s role as minister of human services when the NDP took office in 2015.
“I am very pleased that Manmeet Bhullar’s legacy of public service will be honoured in this way. We intend to support legislation renaming my constituency in his honour,” said Sabir in a statement emailed to Postmedia.
Bhuller’s older sister, Tarjinder Bhullar, remembered her brother as a person who “just wanted to help people.”
Then-PC Leader Ric McIver said Bhullar was a “fierce defender of the underdog and would not stand for bullying of minorities.”
