He humbly begins with saying, “Being able to put the title with your name is very prestigious but also a great responsibility. It obligates me to be a role model for many, especially Indo-Canadians, to contribute to making our country stronger on every level: economically, socially and culturally”. Supporting him is his wife, Mandeep (Roshi), and together they have striven to be the best versions of themselves.
Baljit’s family roots are in the part of Punjab that is now in Pakistan – his family had moved to India before partition. Contributing his personal success to his lineage, Baljit’s grandfather, Sardar Sahib Sardar Mehar Singh Chadha, a title bestowed upon him by the British, built up a successful business first in Iran and then in Bombay (now Mumbai). Jagjit Singh, Baljit’s father, took their business in Bombay forward. His mother, Tripet Kaur, was born and brought up in Mumbai as part of a successful business family.
Born in 1951, Baljit studied at Don Bosco High School, Mumbai, and went on to do his B.Sc. from St. Xavier’s College. He came to Canada in 1973 to start his MBA at the Ivey School of Business at Western University in Ontario. A year later, he moved to Montreal where he continued his MBA studies at Concordia University. He started his own business in 1976.
Looking back at his school and college days, he says, “I was a good cricket player but had fractured my right arm twice while playing and ultimately had to stop. We were also a travel-loving family, travelling all over India, Europe and Iran; in fact, we once went from Mumbai to Delhi in an Ambassador car in the 1960s”.
Roshi, born in Delhi, did her studies at Sacred Heart College in Dalhousie (Himachal Pradesh), and got married to Baljit in 1979. Later, when their son, Harkeet, and daughter, Gurveen, grew up, she went back to university and did her BA in fine arts and MFA in art history from Concordia University. She is passionate about Canadian art, especially Inuit art, and endeavours to promote it locally and internationally. Her dedication to the arts has also facilitated cross-cultural exchanges and forged ever-stronger ties between Canada and India.
Connection with India – A family tradition
The couple is proud of their family’s heritage. Baljit shares, “Our family’s good fortune actually began from the Golden Temple, Amritsar. We have been ardent sewadars of the Sri Darbar Sahib, which my grandfather began when he started his journey into the world of business. He went there in reverence like any other devotee. While leaving, he found some money in a handkerchief that became the capital to start his business. He considered it to be the Guru’s blessing and none of us has ever forgotten it. Our family has been committed to sewa at the Darbar Sahib and our family is probably, after Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the second-largest sewadars. To name a few, all the marble pillars in the parikrama, all the brass railings, the first few gold chabbas (canopies), the gold chaur (whisk), the gold manji (bed) on which the holy Granth Sahib is opened every day were given by our family. Then in 2001, we built 17 rooms for pilgrims to stay, which were inaugurated by the then Prime Minister of Canada, Jean Chretien.
Recalling his early days in Canada, he says, “My father supported me for a year and, thereafter, I didn’t take any money from him. I did everything on my own. I had a job and did everything else that you find in a typical immigrant story. Then I started the business in 1976 with a rented desk in my cousin’s office and with capital borrowed from friends”. Today Balcorp is a successful mid-sized company, importing and exporting agricultural products like nuts, almonds, dried fruits and pulses.
Humanity personified
Harkeet and Gurveen too have followed in the footsteps of their parents. Baljit says, “We emphasised that our children should complete their education before starting their careers”.
Harkeet did his schooling at Lower Canada College, Montreal, and Neuchatel College, Switzerland. He went to McGill University for B.Com. and then to the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, for LLB. He used to work with his father but has embarked on his own to start his own real-estate business and other ventures. He is happily married to Nicole.
Gurveen completed her schooling at Lower Canada College, Montreal, and Mahindra United World College in Pune, an internationally renowned institute, which most Indians don’t know about. She went to Dartmouth College, an Ivy League university in the USA, for her BA. She then worked at the Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office and with Marc Garneau, Minister of Transport, in Ottawa. Thereafter, she went to the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University for graduate studies. She is currently working as a special advisor to the CEO at a Canadian Crown Corporation.
Baljit goes on to say, “Roshi and my measure of true success is based on our altruistic endeavours. At every step in our lives, our intention is to follow the principles of sewa and intend to give back to the community that has supported us to grow and become successful”. He, however, credits it all to Roshi. “Without a second thought, the success of our family is all thanks to her.”
Independently successful, she is a co-founder of Olives en folie, a retail business of specialty foods. Working together, the couple shares the same values of hard work and selflessness; they bring their vision of community service forward through the Chadha Family Foundation, which they co-founded in 1992 with a mission of promoting art, culture, health and education.
One of Roshi’s proudest achievements was sponsoring and facilitating the installation of a nine-foot Inukshuk sculpture in front of the Canadian High Commission in New Delhi, which was unveiled in 2014 by Governor General of Canada, David Johnston, as a gesture of friendship between Canada and India. A smaller replica of this Inukshuk was gifted by the Chadha family to Canada, and this was the official gift given in 2018 by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his state visit to India. Their other significant initiative and a milestone in Canada–India art and culture exchange was sponsoring the National Gallery of Canada’s exhibition, Sanaugavut: Inuit Art from the Canadian Arctic, at the National Museum, New Delhi, in 2010. It resulted in the signing of a Memorandum of Culture between the two countries. She also initiated the establishment in 2022 of the Sikh Art Gallery at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts; it will be the first such gallery in Canada.
Roshi is the current vice-chair of the board of trustees of the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. She has been on the boards of McGill University and its Health Centre Foundation, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Canadian Centre for Architecture, the Blue Metropolis, the Canadian Red Cross, St. Mary’s Hospital Foundation and Lower Canada College.
Baljit is a member of the Queen’s Privy Council of Canada and a governor emeritus of Concordia University, Montreal, and was a member of the blue-ribbon Security Intelligence Review Committee of Canada, Ottawa, a distinguished fellow of the Asia Pacific Foundation, Vancouver, a director of the Canada-India Business Council and Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce, Toronto, and a trustee of the International Nut & Dried Fruit Council, Spain.
The couple has often been recognised for their efforts towards societal upliftment and business achievement. They are among the rare few couples who have both received the Governor General’s Medallion for their contribution to strengthening the Canada–India relationship. They have been bestowed the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Commemorative Medal, both separately. Baljit has also been recognised with the Punjab Government’s Achievers Award in 2019, the Chief Khalsa Diwan Award, the Delhi Sikh Gurudwara Award and a Hindu Mission of Canada award, all for his social work.
Besides sponsoring other projects, the Chadha Family Foundation has started undergraduate courses in Sikh studies at McGill University, University of Montreal, York University, University of Toronto (Mississauga campus) and the University of Calgary. Its endowment fund pays for fees and books every year for 10 indigenous students at McGill and Concordia Universities.