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My job helped me to understand their struggles and aspirations. It helped spark my passion for my community. It inspired me to run for office, and I took that experience to city hall to advocate for better infrastructure and services.

Some people regularly make fun of me and make comments like “make Sohi a bus driver again.” They try to diminish my background. Their words don’t upset me — to be frank, I’ve faced much worse in my life.

However, people who make their living driving a bus or taxi, a truck, or a forklift deserve better. People who build the foundations, frames and wiring of our homes absolutely have the ability to strengthen the foundations and systems of our government.

Working-class people belong in politics, and I am incredibly proud to live in a country where a person who worked hard driving the midnight shift from Mill Woods Town Centre to downtown can also work hard as a member of Parliament and minister of the Crown. My experience reminds me every single day of the outsized contribution working-class people make in our country. It also reminds me of the responsibility we have to make decisions that support them.

That is why, the first bill I voted for as a member of Parliament was a tax cut for working-class Canadians, allowing them to keep more of their hard-earned money in their pockets. I wish the Canada Child Benefit, which our government implemented, was in place when Sarbjeet and I were raising our daughter, so we did not have to make the hard choice between buying her a birthday gift or putting her in a basketball program.