Prabmeet Sarkaria

Prabmeet Singh Sarkaria is a Canadian lawyer and politician who has been the Ontario minister of transportation since 2023. He has sat as the member of Provincial Parliament for Brampton South since 2018, representing the Progressive Conservative (PC) Party.
Sarkaria was previously the associate minister of red tape reduction from 2019 to 2021 and president of the Treasury Board of Ontario from 2021 to 2023. Sarkaria is the first turban-wearing Sikh to be appointed to cabinet.

Early and personal life

Sarkaria was born in Orangeville, Ontario. Sarkaria's parents immigrated from Punjab, India in the 1980s. His father drove a taxi and mother worked in a factory until they later became small business owners, after purchasing an inn outside of Orangeville.
Sarkaria attended Wilfrid Laurier University, where he completed a Bachelor of Business Administration degree, majoring in finance. He worked in at TD Securities, before attending law school at the University of Windsor. He worked at Miller Thomson as an associate corporate lawyer until his election.

Sarkaria was nominated to be the PC Party candidate for Brampton South on December 8, 2016. Sarkaria is the first turban-wearing Sikh to be appointed to cabinet.
Prior to his appointment as a minister, Sarkaria was the chair of the Select Committee on Financial Transparency and also served on the Standing Committee on Justice Policy. He also previously served as the parliamentary assistant to the solicitor general.
He stepped down as the parliamentary assistant to the solicitor general on June 20, 2019 when he was appointed to the Executive Council of Ontario as the associate minister of small business and red tape reduction.