Anita Anand is the first Hindu Indian-Canadian to be elected as a federal minister in Canada. Anita Anand is a lawyer and politician from Canada who formerly served as the Minister of National Defense. Indira Anita Anand was born in the town of Kentville in the province of Nova Scotia. Her mother, Saroj D. Ram (now deceased), worked as an anesthesiologist, while her father, S.V. (Andy) Anand, worked as a general surgeon. Her mother was from Punjab, and her father was from Tamil Nadu. Her sister, Gita Anand, is an employment lawyer in Toronto. Another sister, Sonia Anand, is a medical doctor and researcher at McMaster University. In 1985, the family moved to Oakville, where Anand and her husband, John, raised their family.
The couple is the parents of four children. Anita Anand has a bachelor of arts in political studies from Queen's University and a bachelor of arts in Jurisprudence from Wadham College, Oxford University. She gained a bachelor of law from Dalhousie University. Anita Anand is also a master of law from the University of Toronto. Anita Anand has taught at Yale, Queen's University, and Western University, among other institutions. Anita Anand was a law professor at the University of Toronto before her election.
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| TN origin Anita Anand creates history as the first Hindu minister |
For the past 17 years, Anand, her husband John, and their four children have resided in Oakville, Ontario. Anand has given back to her community in a variety of ways throughout her 17 years in Oakville. She has served on the boards of directors of the Oakville Hospital Foundation, the Lighthouse for Grieving Children, and Oakville Hydro Electricity Distribution Inc. She was also the first chair of the Investor Advisory Panel of the Ontario Securities Commission. Anand specializes in corporate governance, shareholder rights, and financial market regulation.
Anand has been on leave from the University of Toronto's Faculty of Law since her election. After completing her honours thesis at Torys from 1992–1993, Anand began her legal career as an associate at Torys from 1994 to 1997 (with leave to obtain her master's degree). She subsequently continued her teaching career as an assistant professor (adjunct) at Western University's Faculty of Law from 1997 to 1999.
Anita Anand joined Queen's University's Faculty of Law as a professor in 1999 and earned tenure and promotion to associate professor in 2003. In 2005, she obtained a Fulbright scholarship from the United States and Canada and worked as a visiting lecturer in law at Yale Law School, where she taught comparative corporate governance.
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| Anita Anand |
She was also a visiting Olin scholar at Yale Law School, where she studied law and economics. In 2006, Anita Anand moved from Queen's University to the Toronto Faculty of Law. Anand was also the director of the Center for the Legal Profession and its Program on Ethics in Law. She was a senior fellow at Massey College during her election and was a cross-appointed director.
She has done extensive research for the Ontario Five-Year Review Committee, the federal Wise Persons Committee, and the Canadian Task Force to Modernize Securities Legislation. She was named to the Expert Committee to Consider Financial Advisory and Financial Planning Policy Alternatives by the Ontario government in 2015. Anita Anand worked at the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy and the Rotman School of Management's Capital Markets Research Institute.
What was the contribution of Anita during the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada?
The federal government expanded its procurement capabilities on an emergency basis during the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada to quickly stock the hospital system with personal protective equipment (PPE) and medical supplies. Anand and her department implemented an aggressive procurement approach as procurement minister, engaging various suppliers to promote variety in Canada's supply chains to assure dependable access to PPE in a hyper-competitive global market. The construction of large-scale domestic medical supply manufacturing was a vital part of this plan.
During the pandemic, federal procurement expanded dramatically to include fast tests in addition to reagents and swabs for laboratory-based testing to support provinces and territories' testing programs. Beginning in the summer of 2020, Canada signed agreements for seven of the most promising COVID-19 vaccine candidates and the materials required to manufacture and distribute the vaccinations on behalf of the provinces and territories.
The initial goal was to obtain enough vaccinations to immunize all Canadians with two doses by September 30, 2021, and they met that goal two months early, receiving a total of more than 66.4 million vaccines by the end of July 2021, two months ahead of schedule.