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Meet Alykhan Velshi, the Man Who Allegedly Fed Paul Calandra His Non-Answers about ISIS

Last week Paul Calandra, Stephen Harper’s parliamentary secretary, made a mockery out of Parliament’s question period by answering Thomas Mulcair’s questions about Iraq with an attack against the NDP for their stance on Israel. But who put him up to...

Alykhan Velshi, enjoying some delicious hookah smoke. via Facebook.

Canadians with an interest in preserving democracy were shocked last week after Paul Calandra, Stephen Harper’s parliamentary secretary, made a mockery out of Parliament’s question period by answering Thomas Mulcair’s questions about Iraq with an attack against the NDP for their stance on Israel.

Mulcair, at first, made light of the situation—calling Calandra’s attention to the fact that they were discussing a different country starting with ‘I,’ but after Calandra doubled-down on his bullshit, Mulcair ended up calling out the Conservative Speaker for being biased, as there was no interference to stop the insanity.

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To further the frustration, Calandra’s petulant refusal to answer very valid questions, pertaining to Canada’s new military operations, were often met with a standing ovation by his fellow party members. While the argument can certainly be made that the governing party is there to govern, and does not need to call a vote or even hold an open discussion to engage in a new military operation—to disrespect Mulcair and the Canadian public at large by ignoring the questions in such a juvenile manner has struck a chord of discontent.

This embarrassing farce eventually led to a tearful but inadequate apology from Calandra (as he stated this would all probably happen again soon) and a refusal from the NDP to support the ISIS mission.

But clearly it’s not just Calandra who is making a mockery of Canadian democracy. As the CBC reported on Sunday, Alykhan Velshi, the 30 year-old “issues management” director for Stephen Harper’s office, handed Calandra “material” with the instruction that he “was told to use it in his answer no matter what question was asked in the House.”

While Calandra has denied that Velshi put him up to his buffoonery in the house (like someone who toes the party line would) Velshi has stayed quiet on the subject. Alykhan Velshi ignored two emails from VICE to respond to these allegations.

So who is this political dynamo, allegedly, going to great lengths to deliberately interrupt the flow of democratic conversation in Canada’s Parliament? Well, not only is Alykhan Velshi within Stephen Harper’s inner circle, he is also a very vocal champion of the tar sands. He founded Ethical Oil, an organization dedicated to slamming Saudi Arabia and Neil Young, while simultaneously championing the ethical methodology of Canadian oil.

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Ethical Oil’s most recent PR stunt, the website and campaign ‘Neil Young Lies,’ sidestepped the discussion of how oil companies infringe on First Nation land rights that Young meant to focus on, and went straight to a 'Neil Young is a hot shot California rockstar who loves private jets' takedown tactic. The organization’s ethos is based on Ezra Levant’s book, Ethical Oil, whose author you may know from such defamatory statements as “Pierre Elliott Trudeau is a slut.” It’s no surprise, then, that Alykhan Velshi is close with Enbridge lobbyists. Velshi reportedly met with Enbridge recently, possibly to ‘manage’ the ‘issues’ surrounding the Northern Gateway pipeline. But given Velshi’s neo-conservative advocacy of Canadian oil, it’s unsettling that our highest office’s representative, who is supposed to be negotiating the controversial nature of Enbridge’s pipeline projects, is a fanboy of natural resource-extraction expansion to the highest degree.

On top of all that, Velshi has also been an active supporter of George W. Bush’s calamitous military strategies. While he studied at LSE, he published academic papers supporting the “preemptive” war in Iraq. And, during his time in the States, he worked alongside Paul Wolfowitz, former President of the World Bank and one of the Iraq War’s key architects, at a neoconservative think-tank called the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). To give you an idea of the type of pedigree the AEI attracts, David Koch sits on the AEI’s national council, and the AEI itself receives generous funding from Charles Koch’s foundation.

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Given Velshi’s support of a failed war that Chretien kept us away from, the allegation that he is deliberately derailing Canada’s parliamentary discussions about ISIS is disheartening.

Joining Calandra, and possibly Velshi, in obfuscating the conversation about Canada’s ISIS mission is the Speaker of the House of Commons himself—Conservative party member Andrew Scheer.

Scheer, at 32, is the youngest Speaker the country has seen, and his reasoning for not intervening in Calandra’s stream-of-bullshit is unsatisfying. He told the press: “…It is called question period, not answer period,” which as Michael Den Tandt pointed out in the National Post, is “astonishing balderdash”—as logic like this could permit Calandra to “speak in Sanskrit, or in tongues; he could say “Lalalalalalalala” while plugging his ears, the way kids do. He could read his grocery list…”

With such stubborn, manipulative individuals as these directing the flow of conversation in Parliament, it’s no wonder Canadians are kept in the dark about so many key issues. While the world recoils in horror at the beheadings of American journalists by ISIS members, and at the threat of Jihadists (from Canada no less) striking North America, it’s crucial that we hold our government accountable and push for as much transparency as possible.

Sure, we can’t let the cat out of the bag entirely when it comes to military operations, as there are reasonable national security concerns to consider, but for the governing party to ignore and insult, instead of answer direct questions, is an embarrassment to the nation.

Clearly there are individuals in the Conservative party who aren’t happy about these political games either. The CBC was told by “several Conservative MPs… [that] they were furious as they listened to Calandra's answers in the House,” and the control over the party at large by the Prime Minister's office has been an issue in the past, as backbenchers complained about being muzzled by Harper’s HQ.

So, it seems as if Canada’s parliamentary carnival is being run by individuals who are purposely trying to derail the national conversation into a den of secrecy, without any respect for the opposition party or the public at large. This trend does not bode well for the future of rational political discourse in Canada regarding pertinent national issues, but moreover it seems to be splintering the Conservative party itself, which begs the question, is this even an effective strategy?

@patrickmcguire