33 Facts About Alykhan Velshi

Alykhan Velshi was born on 6 February 1984 and is a lawyer, policy analyst, and ministerial assistant.

Alykhan Velshi has worked at the predominantly neoconservative American Enterprise Institute and was manager of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where he co-founded the Center for Law and Counterterrorism with Andrew C McCarthy.

Alykhan Velshi has written pieces in support of George W Bush's foreign and military policies.

Alykhan Velshi used to work as chief of staff for two leaders of the official opposition of Ontario, Patrick Brown and Vic Fedeli, who were then leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party.

Alykhan Velshi attended the Toronto French School, a private school in Lawrence Park.

Alykhan Velshi holds a law degree from the London School of Economics and passed the New York bar exam in 2006.

Alykhan Velshi is the son of the past President and CEO of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission Rumina Velshi.

Alykhan Velshi is an Ismaili Muslim and is a distant relative of journalist Ali Velshi and former Liberal Member of Provincial Parliament Murad Velshi.

Alykhan Velshi has written extensively about foreign policy, particularly with regard to the Middle East.

Alykhan Velshi's position is pro-Israel and strongly supportive of George W Bush's foreign policy.

Alykhan Velshi wrote a column for The Hill in June 2006, encouraging the United States Senate to endorse regime change in Iran by passing the Iran Freedom Support Act.

Alykhan Velshi attempted to address concerns that this aid would be directed toward militant organizations by arguing that the terms of the bill restricted aid to groups that "oppose the use of terrorism, support democratic values and human rights and display a willingness to commit Iran to the existing nuclear non-proliferation framework".

Alykhan Velshi called for the United States to recognize the breakaway republic of Somaliland, arguing that this would demonstrate a commitment to the "Bush doctrine" and be in America's strategic interests.

Alykhan Velshi opposed the Union of Islamic Courts in Somalia, and defended the government of Ethiopia for supporting what he described as the "democratically-elected transitional government based in Baidoa".

Alykhan Velshi later supported the prosecution of two New York men accused of broadcasting Hezbollah's al-Manar television network in the United States.

In 2006, Andrew C McCarthy and Velshi wrote a white paper entitled "We Need A National Security Court".

In late 2006, Alykhan Velshi described the prosecution of Canadian-born newspaper baron Conrad Black as a "tragedy", and as representative of a legal system "focused less on securing justice than on bringing down the high and mighty while pandering to the politics of envy".

Alykhan Velshi argued that the legal proceedings had ruined Black's financial status and reputation before any finding of guilt, and further asserted that the regulatory state created by Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal was ultimately responsible for this situation.

Alykhan Velshi described Canada's health care system as "old and decrepit" in a March 2006 letter to The Globe and Mail newspaper, sarcastically comparing Canada's system to existing models in Cuba and North Korea.

In 2011, Alykhan Velshi left government service and founded a website to promote the ideas put forward by Ezra Levant in his book Ethical Oil: The Case for Canada's Oil Sands.

Alykhan Velshi subsequently returned as the Director of Planning for the Prime Minister's Office later in 2011.

Alykhan Velshi was hired as senior special assistant to Jason Kenney, Canada's newly appointed Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, in early 2007.

Alykhan Velshi supported flying of the Canadian Red Ensign at the Canadian National Vimy Memorial in 2007, describing the flag as "an enduring source of Canadian patriotism".

Alykhan Velshi later defended the Conservative government decision's not to fly flags at half-mast for Canadian soldiers killed in combat, arguing that this gesture was not permitted under Canadian law.

Alykhan Velshi was the official contact on a late 2007 government press release commemorating the Jewish celebration of Hanukkah, wherein the festival was erroneously described as marking "the triumph of the Jewish people against tyranny more than two million years ago".

Alykhan Velshi later said that the document went through several revisions before its release, and that the word "millennia" was accidentally changed to "million years" somewhere along the way.

Alykhan Velshi moved to the department of Environment Minister John Baird in August 2008 as Director of Parliamentary Affairs, where he was responsible for "advising and briefing the minister on legislative issues [and] overseeing the legislative approval process".

The Hill Times described this as an important position, in that Alykhan Velshi had a role in formulating the government's response to Liberal Party Stephane Dion's proposed Green Tax Shift.

Jason Kenney was promoted to Minister of Citizenship and Immigration after the 2008 federal election, and Alykhan Velshi returned to work with him as Director of Communications and Parliamentary Affairs.

In late 2008, Alykhan Velshi articulated the Harper government's position that conscientious objectors from the United States military were not legitimate refugees in Canada.

Alykhan Velshi defended the government's introduction of limits on the refugee and immigration process on the grounds a few months later, on the grounds that failed refugee claimants and others were abusing the federal pre-removal risk assessment program.

Alykhan Velshi offered that the signatories to this letter represented only a "tiny" and "quite radicalized minority" of Arab-Canadian organizations.

Alykhan Velshi threatened legal action against the Harper government, asserting that he was not a supporter of terrorism and was not barred from entering any other country, including Israel.