Indian-origin MP bows out of Canada PM race, won’t seek re-election

Ottawa, Jan 12 (IANS/WISHAVWARTA):- Anita Anand has bowed out of Canada’s prime ministerial race and announced that she won’t seek re-election to parliament either.

Transport Minister Anand said on Saturday afternoon that she was following Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s example and will start her career’s next chapter by returning to academia.

With the Liberal Party leadership and the prime ministership heading to a dead end in an election that favours the opposition Conservative Party and its leader Pierre Marcel Poilievre, two other prominent politicians, Foreign Minister Melanie Joly and Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc, have also quit the race to succeed Trudeau who announced last week his decision to resign.

In the announcement on X, Anand, who has previously held the powerful defence portfolio, said, “Now that the Prime Minister has made his decision to move to his next chapter, I have determined the time is right for me to do the same, and to return to my prior professional life of teaching, research, and public policy analyses.”

An expert in business and finance law, she was a tenured law professor at the University of Toronto. She did stints as a visiting lecturer at Yale University in the US before plunging into politics and becoming the MP from Oakville in Ontario in 2019.

Speaking of her origin, she said, “During my first campaign, many people told me that a woman of Indian descent would not get elected in Oakville, Ontario. Yet, Oakville rallied behind me not once but twice since 2019, an honour that I will hold in my heart forever.”

Her father, S.V. Anand was the son of a freedom fighter from Tamil Nadu, V.A. Sundaram, and her mother Saroj Ram was from Punjab, and both were doctors who immigrated to Canada.

Joining the Trudeau cabinet in 2019 as the public services and procurement minister, she made her mark ensuring Canada had enough medical equipment and vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2021, she received the high-profile defence portfolio and moved in a cabinet reshuffle to be the president of the Treasury Board, a ministerial-level post, overseeing government operations broadly.

Last year, she became the transport minister and added the internal trade portfolio.

Taking stock of her rapid rise in government, she wrote, “Back in 2019, I could never have imagined that such work would mean navigating supply chains to overcome a global pandemic, addressing sexual assault in the Canadian Armed Forces, ensuring military aid reached Ukraine, overseeing the Treasury Board Secretariat or reinforcing Canada’s Transportation systems.”

With his popularity cratering, Trudeau has said that he will quit when a new Liberal Party leader, who will automatically become the prime minister, is elected under the supervision of party President Sachit Mehra.

The party said the election will be completed by March 9, ahead of parliament resuming its sessions on March 24.

Opposition parties have threatened an immediate vote of non-confidence, which would lead to elections sooner than October when the House of Commons term runs out.

An Abacus poll after Trudeau’s announcement showed the opposition Conservative Party with a massive 27 per cent lead, with 47 per cent voter support compared to the Liberal’s 20 per cent.

With less than weeks or months to try to turn the Liberal Party’s fortunes around, leaders are reluctant to take on the mantle of prime ministership for a short time, only to lead the party to almost certain defeat in the parliamentary election.

US President-elect Trump’s threat to impose 25 per cent tariffs on imports if Ottawa did not crack down on illegal migration to the US has rattled Canadian politics.

Both Joly and LeBlanc, who hold portfolios directly dealing with the Trump threat said they are quitting the race to focus on it.

Of the likely front-runners, Chrystia Freeland, who was forced out as deputy prime minister by Trudeau, and economist and banker Mark Carney, who has the unique distinction of having been the governor of the Bank of England and the Bank of Canada, are now left in the race.