Vim Kochar, 73, president and founder of the Vimal Group of Companies in Toronto is the first Indian-born to be nominated by Prime Minister Stephen Harper to the Canadian Senate.

 

Vim Kochhar is one of the five new members appointed to the upper chamber of the Parliament of Canada. The lower chamber of Parliament is the House of Commons.

 

Vim Kochhar obtained an engineering degree from the University of Texas and came to Canada in 1967. He acquired Canadian citizenship in 1974.

 

The Canadian senate comprises of 105 members and each member is to serve till the age of 75 and draws a salary of $130,400 per annum, less than what Kochhar earns out of his business. Kochhar stated, “Money is not everything in life.” Hinting at the majority held by the opposition Liberal Party in the Upper House he said, “We were all getting pretty frustrated the way the whole thing (the Senate) was operating.” 

 

Kochhar has quite a lot of charity work to his credit. He set up the Canadian Foundation for Physically Disabled Persons. He also started the annual Great Valentine Galas, the Canadian Helen Keller Centre, Rotary Cheshire Homes for the Deaf-Blind, Rolling Rampage for wheelchair athletes, the ‘WhyNot’ Marathon for the Paralympics, and the Terry Fox Hall of Fame - named after the young Canadian who died an early death due to cancer.

 

Vim Kochhar will join Senator Mobina Jaffer, an Indian, who was born in Uganda. Jaffer was appointed to the upper house in 2001.

 

The Canadian Prime minister commented on the opposition saying, “The opposition have abused their Senate majority by obstructing and eviscerating law and order measures that are urgently needed and strongly supported by Canadians.” And said, “These new senators are committed to community safety and justice for the victims of crime.”