Kahlon was born and raised in Victoria, British Columbia; his mother was a restaurateur, while his father was a sawmill worker.[2] He was introduced to field hockey by his family at the age of 7, and began playing as a defender in the Victoria League at age twelve.[1] He graduated from Lambrick Park Secondary School, where he also played basketball.[3] He was selected to the junior national field hockey team in 1999 and was named team captain.[1] Kahlon was a student at Camosun College in Victoria at the time.[4] He earned his first international senior cap for the Men's National Team in 2000 against Malaysia in Brussels.[1]
He moved to the Metro Vancouver suburb of Delta in 2005 to facilitate his career with the Vancouver-based national field hockey team.[2][3] After retiring from playing, he began a career in banking, and also served as director of stakeholder relations for the BC NDP caucus.[5][6] In 2013, Kahlon was inducted into the Delta Sports Hall of Fame.[1]
Political career
In October 2016, Kahlon announced he would be running for office in the 2017 provincial election with the BC NDP;[7] he won the NDP nomination in Delta North. That riding is considered a swing district, having been won three times each by the BC NDP and British Columbia Liberal Party in the six elections prior to 2017. When the election was held on May 9, 2017, Kahlon defeated Liberal incumbent Scott Hamilton by a margin of 9.14 percentage points.
The 2017 British Columbia election resulted in a hung parliament, with no party controlling a majority of seats in the Legislative Assembly. However, the NDP was eventually able to form a minority government with the support of the Green Party of British Columbia. The NDP government was sworn in on July 18, 2017, with new PremierJohn Horgan naming Kahlon as Parliamentary Secretary for Sport and Multiculturalism.[8] Kahlon was later named Parliamentary Secretary for Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development.[9]
Following his re-election in 2020, in which he won 56.78% of the vote, he was named Minister of Jobs, Economic Recovery and Innovation.[9][11]
After Horgan announced his retirement as premier and party leader in 2022, Kahlon endorsed David Eby and joined as co-chair of Eby's campaign, alongside Katrina Chen.[12] Kahlon was subsequently named Minister of Housing and Government House Leader in the Eby ministry on December 7, 2022.[13]
^Forrest, Maura (July 11, 2017). "NDP leadership tracker: Wab Kinew endorses Jagmeet Singh". National Post. Retrieved March 1, 2018. "Jagmeet, like many of B.C.'s newly elected MLAs, represents a new energy that is the future of our party. I've seen Jagmeet in action here in BC and watched him connect with people. Jagmeet is the leader our federal party needs," said Ravi Kahlon, the MLA for Delta North, in a statement.
