March 21, 2025
Canada has just gotten its first Iranian federal cabinet minister, as new Prime Minister Mark Carney named Ali Ehsassi as a member of his new small cabinet replacing that of former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Ehsassi is the new procurement minister while taking on a newly created role of “minister of government transformation.” The prime minister created a much smaller government than Trudeau had, slashing the cabinet by more than a third from 39 members to just 24 on March 14. This is Ehsassi’s first ministerial role.
He has been an MP since 2015. He represents a riding—the Canadian term for what Americans call a congressional district—in the Toronto area, a riding that is heavily populated by Iranian immigrants. It is named Willowdale. He is one of two Iranians in Parliament. He has long been highly critical of the Islamic Republic. Ehsassi had been vocally calling for a caucus vote on Trudeau’s leadership well before the now former prime minister stepped down.
In the leadership race of the Liberal Party after Trudeau’s resignation, Ehsassi backed Carney, who won overwhelmingly. Ehsassi, 54, was born in 1970 in Geneva, Switzerland, where his father was serving as an Iranian diplomat.
His family moved to New York City when he was three and to Ontario when he was 15. He was educated at the University of Toronto, the London School of Economics and the Georgetown University School of Law in Washington, DC. Ehsassi’s maternal great grandfather was Abdol-Hossein Teymourtash, who was minister of court for the first seven years of the Pahlavi Dynasty and viewed as the organizational brains of the new regime.
He was credited with creating the modern government structure in the 1920s. He was fired in 1932 by Reza Shah who suspected him of being too close to the British. He was immediately jailed and died months later at age 50 in what has long been believed to be a political execution.
Ehsassi’s post as minister of transformation, public services and procurement would appear to give him a position to shape the structure and bureaucracy of the Canadian federal government, a position not unlike that of his great grandfather, although Ehsassi will be dealing with a government already with modern structure. Ehsassi’s cabinet position could be short-lived. Carney is expected to call an election in a matter of weeks and polls suggest a close race between his Liberal Party and his Conservative Party challenger.
If the Conservatives win, Ehsassi and the other new cabinet ministers would find their tenure lasting only a few months.
