Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently announced 10 changes in the senior ranks of the public service, with 2 Indo-Canadians included in the top rank positions.
Dr. Harpreet S. Kochhar who is currently President of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, becomes Deputy Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, effective January 27, 2024. He replaces Christiane Fox, who was appointed Deputy Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada in July 2022.
Kochhar became President of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) on February 27, 2023.
Prior to this appointment, Kochhar served as President of the Public Health Agency of Canada since October 2021.
Before joining Health Canada, he served as Assistant Deputy Minister of the Operations Sector for Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) where he led the delivery of the Immigration, Citizenship and Passport programs across Canada and at missions and offices abroad. He also was responsible for the implementation of key strategic projects for IRCC, including the Passport Modernization Initiative, Predictive Analytics, and the transformation of IRCC’s operational delivery model.
Kochhar started his career by practising veterinary medicine in South Western Ontario. He has a Master’s Degree in Veterinary Science and a Ph.D. in Animal Biotechnology from the University of Guelph where he also was Assistant Professor at the Ontario Veterinary College.
On a personal note, Dr. Kochhar is an active fundraiser for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and contributes to charities such as the Heart and Stroke Foundation, the Mental Health Institute, and the Liver Foundation. In 2012, Dr. Kochhar was honoured with Elizabeth II’s Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal for his professional and volunteer contributions and in 2017 he was awarded the Canada 150 Medal for community services. He was also noted in MacLean’s annual list of the top 50 influential Canadians of 2022.
Raj Thuppal, currently Assistant Deputy Minister and Chief Information Officer, National Defence, becomes Executive Vice-President of Shared Services Canada, effective January 22, 2024. Raj served as Director General, Cyber and IT Security Transformation in SSC. In this role he was responsible for Cyber and IT Security program planning, design and implementation, risk management and compliance for Government of Canada IT infrastructure. Raj provided oversight of the SSC Cyber and IT Security program budget, led the transformation of cyber and IT security services, and ensured incorporation of supply chain integrity controls and IT Security by Design across all enterprise services and projects, with emphasis on cloud security.
Since joining the public service in 2003, Raj worked at the Department of National Defence and the Canada Revenue Agency. Prior to joining the public service, Raj worked in various engineering roles at Marconi/FORE Systems Ottawa.
