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Anita Anand on Wednesday (May 14) became the first Hindu woman to be sworn in as Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs. The Liberal Member of Parliament has donned many hats ever since she joined politics in 2019, including Minister of National Defence and Minister of Transport.
The appointment of an Indian-origin MP as Foreign Minister under the newly elected Mark Carney government comes amid strained ties between Canada and India. Here’s what we know about Anita Anand.
Anand was born to Indian parents in 1967 in Kentville, Nova Scotia, a province on the east coast of Canada. Her father was from Tamil Nadu, and her mother from Punjab’s Jandiala Guru, a town outside Amritsar. They reportedly met in Ireland in the 1950s, got married in England, and lived in Nigeria and India before moving to Canada in 1965.
Anand wears her Indian heritage proudly, attending Hindu and Sikh events, hosting Diwali parties and taking part in celebrations marking India’s Independence Day.
“I am a Canadian who is very proud of my Punjabi and Tamil heritage,” she once declared in Parliament. Speaking on September 19, 2023, Anand said, “My ethnic background is part and parcel of my entire identity, which is made up of different components, including being a mother, a professor, now a member of Parliament, a Canadian and a Canadian of Indian origin in fact.”
Anand has often spoken about growing up as a “South Asian” in a predominantly white province. In April last year, she told The Globe and Mail, “…the fact that I was racialized never left my consciousness. There weren’t very many people who looked like me and my sisters at my school.” Owing to her experiences as a person of colour, Anand says she tries to incorporate her views about diversity and inclusivity “in everything I am doing”.
Her political career
Anand has an extensive academic background with two Bachelor of Arts degrees in Political Studies and Jurisprudence from Queen’s University and the University of Oxford, respectively. She also has a Bachelor of Laws from Dalhousie University and a Master’s in the subject from the University of Toronto. She has held several roles across universities in her academic career until 2019.
In 2019, she became the first Hindu woman to serve as a Member of Canada’s Parliament, and the first Hindu to become a Cabinet Minister.
Since then, she has served the public in several capacities. In 2021, she became the second woman ever to become Canada’s Defence Minister. She held that portfolio till July 2023, coordinating Canada’s military aid to Ukraine in the face of Russia’s 2022 invasion.
She was the President of the Treasury Board Secretariat from July 2023 to December 2024. She then went on to serve as Minister of Transport and Internal Trade.
India’s ties with Canada had deteriorated under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau after he alleged India’s involvement in the killing of a Sikh separatist, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, in September 2023. The situation worsened when both countries expelled envoys from each other’s nations in October last year.
Speaking in Parliament a day after Trudeau made the allegations, Anand urged for “unity” and the need to uphold law and order. She expressed condolences to the family of Nijjar, stating that it was a “very difficult time” for “many of us who have our roots in India”. “I want to be very clear that our government takes any and all allegations of foreign actor interference in Canada extremely seriously,” she added.
Anand stated that she agreed with Trudeau in letting “law enforcement and security agencies take their course for the continued safety of all Canadians.”
She defended Canada’s Indo-Pacific strategy as “prudent”, despite allegations by the Government of India that Canada was too soft on “Khalistani terrorism”. Canada had launched the Indo-Pacific strategy in 2022 under former Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly to build stronger ties with Japan and South Korea and improve relations with India as a counterpoint to China.
The Liberals have also faced backlash, especially from Indian authorities, for the proliferation of anti-India and anti-Hindu elements in Canada. Most recently on May 5, India lodged a strong protest with Canada over the “threatening language” and “unacceptable imagery” targeting Indian leaders and citizens at a parade held in Toronto. The Indian authorities reportedly called on their Canadian counterparts to “act against anti-India elements who spread hatred and advocate extremism and separatist agenda”.
In her previous statements, Anand has spoken against acts of vandalism on Indian figures and Hindu temples. In June 2024, she condemned the controversial float of former prime minister Indira Gandhi displayed in Canada’s Brampton. “The use of violent imagery in relation to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is disturbing and unacceptable as it promotes and perpetuates hate and violence,” she stated on social media.
In February 2023, she called the vandalism of Hindu temples “unacceptable”, and in July 2022, she criticised the defacement of a Mahatma Gandhi statue at a Hindu temple in Richmond Hill.
Her appointment as the foreign minister was met with intrigue in India, as many hope for bilateral ties to improve under the new government. In March this year, Carney had said, “There are opportunities to rebuild relationships with India, there needs to be a shared sense of values around commercial relationships, and if I am the prime minister, I look forward to the opportunity to build that.”
When he was elected, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he looked forward to working with him to “strengthen our partnership”.
