1. Ahmed Hussen previously served as the Minister of International Development from 2023 to 2025, Minister of Housing, Diversity and Inclusion from 2021 to 2023, Minister of families, children and social development from 2019 to 2021 and the minister of immigration, refugees and citizenship from 2017 to 2019.
Ahmed Hussen is the first Somali-Canadian to be elected to the House of Commons and the first to hold a federal Cabinet position.
Ahmed Hussen has five older siblings and his father was a long-distance trucker.
Two years after leaving Mogadishu, Ahmed Hussen moved to Canada as a refugee, when his parents bought him an airplane ticket to Toronto, where two of his brothers had already moved.
Ahmed Hussen initially resided with a cousin in Hamilton, and moved to Toronto in 1994, where he settled in Regent Park in 1996.
Ahmed Hussen eventually attended York University, where he earned a BA in History in 2002.
Ahmed Hussen is married to Ebyan Farah, a fellow Somali-Canadian refugee.
Ahmed Hussen began his career in public service and politics in the fall of 2001.
Ahmed Hussen started out doing volunteer work in Legislative Assembly of Ontario.
Ahmed Hussen was hired the following year as an assistant to Ontario Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty, then-leader of the province's Official Opposition.
Ahmed Hussen was promoted to special assistant, concurrent with McGuinty's 2003 election as the premier of Ontario.
Ahmed Hussen held this new post for two years, during which he was in charge of issues management, policy and communications.
Ahmed Hussen later worked with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police's Youth Engaged in National Security Issues committee.
Ahmed Hussen currently serves as the national president of the Canadian Somali Congress.
Until 2012, Ahmed Hussen served as a sitting member of the Harper government's Cross-Cultural Roundtable on Security.
Ahmed Hussen won the nomination in a field of six aspirants.
On January 10,2017, Ahmed Hussen was appointed minister of immigration as part of a Cabinet shuffle by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
On October 31,2018, Ahmed Hussen announced that the Government of Canada had updated its multi-year immigration levels plan, which would see the number of new immigrants in Canada rise to 350,000 by 2021.
Ahmed Hussen was shuffled to the families, children and social development portfolio following the 2019 federal election.
In July 2023, Ahmed Hussen became Minister of International Development, succeeding Harjit Sajjan.
In January 2025, Ahmed Hussen went on a Middle Eastern tour to discuss regional issues after the fall of the Assad regime the previous December.
Ahmed Hussen held meetings on Syria and the Middle East in Qatar with the minister of state for international cooperation, in Turkey with the deputy foreign minister, as well as a meeting in Saudi Arabia with the minister of state for foreign affairs and the secretary general of the Gulf Cooperation Council.
Ahmed Hussen has over the years received honours and recognition for his public work.
In 2017, Ahmed Hussen was presented with the Top 25 Canadian Immigrant Awards, an award that honours the achievements of immigrants who have chosen to make Canada their home.
Ahmed Hussen was presented a Queen's Gold and Diamond Jubilee medal.
Ahmed Hussen received the Ontario Non-Profit Housing Authority Award for his efficacious advocacy work in Regent Park.