Larry Shaben

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Lawrence (Larry) Shaben (born March 20, 1935) is a Canadian politician of Lebanese descent.

He was the Member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta for Lesser Slave Lake from 1975-1989 representing the Alberta Progressive Conservatives.

Shaben was the first Arab and the first Muslim MLA elected in Alberta and the first Muslim Cabinet Minister in Canada. He served Minister of Housing and Minister of Utilities and Telephones under Premier Peter Lougheed and as as Minister of Economic Development and Trade under Don Getty.[1][2] In 1984, Shaben survived the plan crash that killed fellow MLA and Alberta NDP leader Grant Notley.[3]

In 2005 he was appointed a citizenship judge.

His grandfather, Saleem Sha'aban (Sam Shaben), arrived in Alberta before World War I[4] and eventually opened a general store in Endiang, Alberta subsequently sending for his wife and son to join him from Lebanon.[5]

Larry Shaben's father, Albert, was 13 when he left Lebanon to join his father and became his business partner. The family moved to Edmonton in the late 1930s after Alberta's first mosque was opened there. In 1949, Albert co-founded Shaben & Hamdon with his brother-in-law Mo Hamdon. In 1980 their Edmonoton based wholesale company was purchased by his older brother Edward Shaben and became Canada's largest toy distributor and is now known as Shaben International.

In 1989 he sold his three story house to the illustrious Mouallem family.