Defense Minister Peter MacKay announced the marriage in a web posting hours after the wedding last Wednesday.
MacKay is 46 and Afshin-Jam is 32. Neither has previously been wed.
MacKay has widely been tabbed as Canada’s most eligible bachelor. Previously he was foreign minister and natterers tried to portray him as a possible match for US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Afshin-Jam was born in Iran and came to Canada as a toddler. Her father had been imprisoned following the revolution and the family fled Iran after he was freed. They settled in Vancouver, on Canada’s West Coast.
MacKay was born and bred in Nova Scotia on Canada’s East Coast. Afshin-Jam has made appearances the last two years at MacKay’s Christmas events in his riding, the Canadian term for an MP’s district, and will now make that province her official home.
Afshin-Jam was crowned Miss World Canada in 2003. In the global Miss World contest, she came in second to Miss Ireland, who was the daughter of singer Chris DeBurgh, best-known for composing and recording “The Lady in Red.”
MacKay has had a very public and disappointing love life. As a junior member of Parliament, he was arm-in-arm with fellow Conservative MP Belinda Stronach. Jaws dropped when Stronach dropped both MacKay and the Conservative Pparty, crossing the floor in 2005 to become a minister in the Liberal Party government of the day.
In 2009, he became engaged to a senior Canadian broadcasting executive, Jana Juginovic, director of programming at CTV News Channel. They announced the cancellation of the engagement in June 2010.
MacKay and Afshin-Jam met in 2007 when Afshin-Jam came to Ottawa to lobby for Canada to be more active on human rights issues in Iran. They have been photographed together at social events and their dating after the end of MacKay’s engagement to Juginovic was no secret.
But they made sure their wedding was a secret and not a media event, first by confining news of their engagement to their families and closest friends, and then by slipping off to Mexico to get married.
Afshin-Jam holds a degree in international relations and political science from the University of British Columbia and attended the Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris.
She has said she was drawn to human rights activism when she saw the lashing scars on her father’s body. She put that urge to work after the Miss World contest by organizing a campaign to save the life of a 17-year-old Iranian girl sentenced to hang for stabbing her would-be rapist to death. Afshin-Jam said she was initially drawn to the case because the girl’s name was also Nazanin.
Afshin-Jam then founded and currently heads Stop Child Executions, dedicated to ending the executions of minors convicted of committing crimes. She also serves on the board of directors of the Canadian Race Relations Foundation.
Afshin-Jam will now be expected to hew to the Conservative Party line. In the past, however, she has spoken out to criticize the current government for failing to press the United States harder to free from Guantanamo a Canadian-born child soldier, Omar Khadr.
But on Iran issues, there are not likely to be any problems. For a decade, Canada has been the drafter and chief sponsor of the annual UN General Assembly resolution criticizing the Islamic Republic for its human rights failures.
Afshin-Jam moved to Ottawa a few years ago to pursue her human rights activity. While her legal residence will now become Lorne, Nova Scotia, her actual home will remain in Ottawa.
MacKay is considered one of the major figures in the Conservative Party. He is widely expected to seek the party leadership whenever Prime Minister Stephen Harper retires and could become prime minister of Canada eventually, elevating Afshin-Jam to a spousal role in Canada that is very similar to that of the First Lady in the United States.
Afshin-Jam is best known to Canadians as a beauty queen. But in addition to English, she speaks French and Farsi, which may be an advantage to her husband’s political career. She is also a licensed pilot, though no one is suggesting she fly around the country promoting the MacKay candidacy.
She is also a singer and has recorded a few music videos, though whether that will be seen as compatible with the role of a the wife of a cabinet minister remains to be determined.
In an interview with The New Glasgow News in his riding, MacKay said he proposed to Nazanin on Valentia, an island off southern Ireland that was his great-grandfather’s home.
He said that while he had known her professionally for some years, he only began dating her in 2010 after his breakup with Juginovic. “I was impressed by her intelligence and commitment to help others,” he said. “She is a very caring and compassionate person. I came to admire her kind heart and the fact that she loves children and animals.”
The couple is now on their honeymoon at an undisclosed location. “We will be back home in Nova Scotia next week and I look forward to sharing time and with family and friends and helping those in the riding before Parliament resumes later this month,” he said.
