For his contributions to the improvement of bridge design and for his scholarship in making Urdu poetry accessible for Canadian audiences.
Engineer Baidar Bakht has advanced bridge safety and design in Canada. As the principal research engineer for the Ontario Ministry of Transportation, he used innovative methods to test and evaluate bridges across the province, resulting in longer-lasting structures. He was also a key figure in the development of updated highway bridge design codes for Ontario and Canada. In addition, he has made Pakistani and Indian literature more widely available to Canadians as a celebrated scholar, poet and translator of the Urdu language.