My Milton Story
Three-term councillor. Farmer by hobby. Miltonian by choice.
I was a teenager when my family left Karachi for Canada. Like a lot of newcomers, we arrived with more homework than money, and this country met us with open doors: a public school that pushed me, a spot at the University of Waterloo studying math and computer science, and a tech career that took me to companies like Microsoft and Amazon, and eventually to a VP of Engineering role right here at home. But the work that actually prepared me for the job I have now happened somewhere far less glamorous: the council chamber on a budget night, with a line-item list and a town growing faster than the money.
Somewhere along the way, my wife and I made the best decision of our lives: we chose Milton. For seventeen years we lived in town, with school runs, hockey bags in the hallway, and Saturday mornings on Main Street. Then we traded the subdivision for an active farm on the rural side of the riding, where we’re raising our blended family of six kids and the dogs who are convinced the farm is theirs. I can confirm that both halves of Milton are excellent training for politics. Raising six kids through all of it was better preparation than anything Queen’s Park has thrown at me since.
Milton grew up around us. When I first ran for town council in 2010, about 80,000 people called this town home. Today we’re over 160,000, the town has doubled around us, and we’re the fastest-growing community of our size in the country, and one of the most wonderfully diverse. Families from every corner of the world, farms that have been here for generations, all figuring out the future together. My story and Milton’s story are the same story, and I’ve never stopped being grateful for that.
Before politics was ever a job, this community was my hobby. I ran a petition in 2009 to get an underpass on Derry Road because the trains were cutting our town in half. I volunteered with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Halton, and served on the boards of the Milton Public Library, Milton Economic Development, Halton Healthcare, and Conservation Halton. You elected me to your town council three times, and I represented us at Halton Regional Council. For much of those twelve years I led budget committees at the Town and the Region: the unglamorous, line-by-line work of weighing one neighbourhood’s road against another’s rec centre, being honest about the trade-offs, and making a fast-growing town’s dollars deliver for the people paying them. It’s the best training there is for cabinet. In 2024 you sent me to Queen’s Park as your MPP, and in 2025 you sent me back. I don’t take either trip for granted.
These days I also serve at the cabinet table as Ontario’s Minister of Tourism, Culture and Gaming. I’ll keep the shop talk for another website. What it means for you is simple: when Milton has something to say, it’s said in the room where decisions get made. Before this post, I served as Associate Solicitor General for Auto Theft and Bail Reform, a file that started at home, with neighbours telling me at the door they were tired of cars vanishing from driveways. By the time I handed it over, auto thefts were down about 26% across Ontario and cut in half here in Halton. I’m proud of that work, and prouder still that it began on Milton’s doorsteps.
One more thing you should probably know about me: back in my council days, I rode my motorcycle 3,686 km around Lake Superior to raise money for mental health care. Through this and my bowling events, we raised nearly $100,000 in Milton so neighbours could get support without cost standing in the way. I did it because mental health struggles don’t care what street you live on or where you were born. And because, frankly, I love a long ride. If you see the bike around town, wave.
That’s me: your councillor for twelve years and now your MPP, a farmer by hobby, and a Miltonian by choice. If there’s something I can do for you, my door on Main Street is open, and if you spot me in line at the Barn Door Café, come say hi. I take coffee recommendations almost as seriously as casework.
ZeeZee Hamid is the Member of Provincial Parliament for Milton and Ontario’s Minister of Tourism, Culture and Gaming. He previously served as Associate Solicitor General for Auto Theft and Bail Reform, where he led a provincewide crackdown that cut auto thefts by about 26% across Ontario and by roughly half in Halton. First elected in May 2024 and re-elected in 2025, he previously served twelve years in municipal office: three terms as a Milton Town Councillor and on Halton Regional Council, where he led budget committees through a period in which Milton doubled in population. Since 2024, he has helped attract more than $255 million in provincial investment to Milton, including $166 million for schools and child care spaces. A University of Waterloo graduate with a private-sector career before public life, he lives on an active farm in Milton with his wife and their blended family of six children.