img

Justin Trudeau, the Canadian Prime Minister, announced his resignation as he has been losing support both within his party and the country itself. Trudeau’s liberal Party is now in pursuit of a new Leader for the party as Justin plans to continue serving as a Prime Minister until the new Leader is chosen.

Several opinions exist with regard to who will replace Trudeau. Anita Anand is a contender, who has served as the Minister of Transport, and is presently a Member of Parliament for Oakville.

Who is Anita Anand?  

Anita Anand was born in Cambridge, England to immigrant Punjabi parents, who emigrated to Canada in the 1960s. Prominently, on October 25, 2019, Anand was successful to win the Canadian Federal election, thus officially starting her career as the Member of Parliament for Oakville. Following her success, she was appointed the Minister of Public Services and Procurement and served for two years, after which she held the positions of the President of the Treasury Board and the Minister of National Defence. During her time as the Minister of National Defence, Anand was able to institute certain amendments to the sexual misconduct issues within the military. In September 2024 she was also made the Minister of Transport and was able to retain the position of President of the Treasury Board.

Anita Anand: A Leader of Tamil and Punjabi Heritage.

Her dad and mom are both doctors. Her father hails from Chennai, Tamil Nadu, while her mother belongs to a small town in Punjab. Anand was elected for the first time as a Member of Parliament for Oakville in 2019. In the past, she has also held office as Minister of Public Services and Procurement. She has worked as a scholar, lawyer and researcher. In December 2022 he shared the video on social networks.

As a response to the video, Mr. Anand said that he is happy to have grown up in both Tamil and Punjabi cultures. “It fills me with pride to say that my ancestors are both Tamils and Punjabis…I have grown up feeling affection for both these cultures within the Indian context,” Anand had said in the video. “So when I take that little story of my family and look across our country and (see) many many Canadians have a similar story to the one that I just told you, I feel a strong emotional pull towards the community,” she said.

Anand shared a brief history of how her family came to be, describing how her mother attended medical school and her father worked as a doctor in Ireland. She explains how her parents got married in England, moved to India and then to Nigeria before finally immigrating to North America because they wished to check out life in the US after some travel – albeit her dad first traveling to Nova Scotia and ultimately settling there.

Anand states that she and her younger sister were born in Nova Scotia while her mother alongside her sisters, who were from Nigeria, joined her father.

Who will become the new Prime Minister?

Since all the three opposition parties are keen on bringing down the Liberal government at the very first chance available, which would lead to new elections, the Liberal party must elect a new head before the Parliament is back on March 24. The newly elected leader would be president for a substantially short time, there is great likelihood that they would have left by the time of the spring elections where the opposing party would win.

Those who were able to scuttle include Minister of Innovation Francois-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Foreign Affairs Melanie Joly, Former Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland, and lastly Mark Carney, Former Bank Governor of Canada and the Bank of England. Although Brookfield Asset Management’s current chair Carney has lost two past elections and is firmly against the idea of winning and the concept of being physically present in office, he was wisely chosen in order to qualify for winning the party and becoming a representative in parliament.

Ministers who are in a race

Dominic LeBlanc, the new minister for finance, is also a potential contender. The former minister of public safety and an ally of Trudeau, LeBlanc, has been recently spotted along with the prime minister at Mar-a-Lago during a supper with President-elect Donald Trump. LeBlanc has claimed the role of Trudeau’s caretaker when he was just a toddler.

People in greater masses say that the next government would be formed by the leader of the Conservative party Pierre Poilievre. Poilievre for quite some time has been the centre of attention of the party being the ‘dog of war’, voicing out his thoughts and idea that Trudeau is the blame for the unnecessary increase in the cost of living for Canadians. Poilievre firmly established himself as a politician for the first time and worked actively promoting his candidature. He committed to abolishing the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s funding as well as a carbon tax.

Anita Anand hails from a lineage of doctors. While her father’s side is originally from Chennai in Tamil Nadu her mother was raised in a town in Punjab. Her first election was as Member of Parliament for Oakville in the year of 2019.