Anita Anand

Anita Anand is Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs, appointed to the portfolio in 2024 after serving as Minister of National Defence from 2021 to 2023 and Minister of Public Services and Procurement before that. First elected to the House of Commons in 2019 for the Oakville riding in Ontario, she is a member of the Liberal Party and has held senior Cabinet portfolios through a period of significant Canadian foreign and defence engagement, including NATO commitments and the Ukraine war. Before entering politics she was a law professor specialising in corporate governance and securities law.

Anand became a central figure in the 2026 World Cup's Iran access dispute after Canada Border Services Agency officers refused entry to FFIRI president Mehdi Taj, secretary-general Hedayat Mombeni, and deputy Hamed Momeni at Toronto Pearson Airport on 29 April 2026 . She publicly described the Visa revocation as 'unintentional' and said it did not represent deliberate Canadian policy against Iranian football participation . The statement drew immediate pushback from Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel Garner, who called it 'gross incompetence or something worse'.

Her intervention sought to limit the diplomatic damage to Canada's co-hosting obligations while preserving the IRGC designation that drove the security check. The distinction she drew — between an erroneous bureaucratic process and deliberate anti-Iran policy — matters to Canada's credibility as a World Cup co-host, but it did not reverse the outcome: Iran's delegation missed the Vancouver FIFA Congress on 30 April regardless of how the revocation was characterised.