Indian-Origin MP Exits Canada PM Race, Declines to Seek Re-Election

Anita Anand has withdrawn from the prime ministerial race in Canada and also declared she will not be running for re-election to parliament.

Transport Minister Anand announced on Saturday afternoon that she is emulating Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who started the next chapter of his career by returning to academia.

With the Liberal Party leadership and prime ministership ending at a dead end in the election that favors the opposition Conservative Party and its leader Pierre Marcel Poilievre, two other politicians in the news who have dropped out of the running to become Trudeau's successor, who has already announced he will resign after a week long statement, are Foreign Minister Melanie Joly and Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc.

In the statement released on X, Anand, who had been the strong defense minister, stated, "Given that the Prime Minister has now made his decision to move on to the next chapter of his life, I have decided the time is right for me to do likewise, and to go back to my previous 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 freedom fighter V.A. Sundaram of Tamil Nadu and her mother, Saroj Ram, was a doctor from Punjab who had moved to Canada with her husband. She joined the cabinet of Trudeau in 2019 as the minister of public services and procurement; she marked that period by providing Canada with ample medical equipment and vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic.

She got the high-profile defence portfolio in 2021 and became president of the Treasury Board through a cabinet shuffle, an upgraded ministerial role, to lead government operations generally.

She became the transport minister and took on internal trade last year.

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."

As his popularity cratered, Trudeau has announced that he would step down once a new Liberal Party leader is elected, under the watchful eye of party President Sachit Mehra. The election is to be completed by March 9, before parliament resumes its sessions on March 24.

Opposition parties threatened an immediate vote of non-confidence, which would mean elections before October when the House of Commons term runs out.

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

This gives less than weeks or months for trying to get the fortune to turn out good for the Liberals, yet leadership is rather averse to stepping into prime ministership for short terms and be made to deliver it to parliamentary elections for sure losses.

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.