Prime Minister Justin Trudeau named Indian-origin Canadian lawmaker Anita Anand as the country's new Defence Minister in a Cabinet reshuffle on Tuesday, more than a month after his Liberal Party reclaimed power in quick elections amid calls for major military reforms.
Anand, 54, will succeed Harjit Sajjan, the long-serving Indian-origin defense minister, whose handling of the military sexual misconduct scandal has been criticized.
According to a story in the National Post daily, Sajjan has been named Minister of the International Development Agency.
According to the statement, the new Cabinet maintains gender balance and comprises 38 members, up to one from before the election.
According to a report in Global News, Anand has been hailed as a potential prospect among defense industry insiders for weeks, who believe that her appointment would send a solid signal to survivors and victims of military sexual misconduct that the government is serious about reforming the system.
According to the report, the Canadian military is under intense public and political pressure to improve its culture and build better processes for preventing and responding to sexual misconduct charges.
According to the report, Anand has considerable experience as a corporate lawyer and has worked extensively on corporate governance, which refers to the laws and procedures in place to regulate firms' operations.
The three Indo-Canadian ministers in the dissolved Cabinet who won the legislative elections last month were Anand, Sajjan, and Bardish Chagger.
With over 46% of the vote in Oakville, Anand was proclaimed the winner, a remarkable development for Canada's vaccination minister.
She was initially elected as a rookie Member of Parliament in 2019, representing Oakville in the province of Ontario, and she served as procurement minister during the COVID-19 pandemic.
She swiftly rose to the top of the country's attempts to get COVID-19 vaccines, and she accompanied Trudeau on many campaign stops.
She had a prominent part in the Liberal response to the health crisis as former Minister of Public Services and Procurement.
She had said after her win, "I'm just ecstatic," thanking the volunteers who had worked tirelessly as a team for five weeks straight, according to the Oakville News.
