Hill Climbers
A rundown of the humans behind AI Minister Solomon’s shop
Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation Minister Evan Solomon, who’s also the minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario, currently has a 14-member team at his back heading into the fall sitting.
Six of those individuals have already been noted in these pages.
Anson Duran, who previously ran then-transport minister Pablo Rodriguez’s office, is chief of staff to Solomon. Melissa George, who was previously director of labour relations to the Treasury Board president, is director of policy for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario, or FedDev Ontario. Also focused on the FedDev Ontario file as senior special assistants for operations and stakeholder engagement Hamid Mohamed and Tanveer Tur.
Meron Cheway, a former operations director to then-women and gender equality minister Marci Ien, is director of operations to Solomon; and Ben Ebadi, an ex-policy and stakeholder relations adviser to then-democratic institutions and FedDev Ontario minister Ruby Sahota, is a regional affairs adviser for the Prairies, West, and North.
Among the eight staffers since added to Solomon’s team is Michael Paramathasan, who’s returned to the Hill to take on the role of director of policy for the artificial intelligence and digital innovation file.
Paramathasan previously worked on the Hill between 2019 and 2021, with his first year spent as a senior policy adviser to then-science and sport minister Kirsty Duncan. In mid-2020, Paramathasan switched offices, becoming a senior policy adviser to then-Treasury Board president Jean-Yves Duclos, who promoted Paramathasan to director of labour relations roughly one year later.
Paramathasan bade farewell to Duclos’ office in July 2021, and subsequently began studying for a master of public administration degree at Harvard University. He has since been Asia-Pacific director with the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, an expert adviser with the United Nations Development Programme’s Advisory Group on Energy Governance, and president and founder of The Indo-Pacific Group.
Until recently, Paramathasan was also on the board of directors for Moorelands Kids, and earlier this year he became a senior fellow for North American economic security and diplomacy with the University of California’s Berkeley Institute for Security and Governance.
Prior to his first run working on the Hill, Paramathasan had worked at Queen’s Park as a senior adviser and interim chief of staff to then-government and consumer services minister Tracy MacCharles. He’s also previously worked in the executive office of the consul general of the United States in Toronto, among other past jobs.
On Sept. 2, Giuliana Endrizzi joined Solomon’s team as a policy and parliamentary affairs adviser, and on Sept. 4, Anushka Kurian started on the job as a senior policy adviser.
Endrizzi comes fresh from Housing and Infrastructure Minister Gregor Robertson’s office where she’d until recently been busy as a legislative adviser and issues manager. She first joined the housing office under then-minister Sean Fraser as a legislative adviser and parliamentary assistant in August 2024, and is also a former assistant to Liberal MP Judy Sgro and then-MP Chad Collins.
Kurian spent the last year and a half—and a bit—working as a senior manager of government relations for Rogers Communications.
Prior to her time with Rogers, Kurian was a consultant with McMillan Vantage Policy Group, and she’s also previously worked as a research and advocacy officer with the non-profit Yazda for its Nobody’s Listening Campaign, an advocacy project focused on condemning the Yazidi genocide by ISIS in Northern Iraq, and as a compliance analyst with the G20 Research Group, among other past jobs. Her CV includes a 2017 summer internship in then-Ontario status of women minister Indira Naidoo-Harris’ office.
Klara Mancini-Hupel has been hired as Quebec regional affairs adviser to Solomon.
Mancini-Hupel is a former director of campus programming for the Canadian Jewish Political Affairs Committee, and was campaign manager to now-Quebec Liberal MP Eric St-Pierre in last spring’s federal election. She’s also previously run communications for a Quebec Liberal Party candidate during the province’s 2022 election, and is a past communications and operations co-ordinator with the Banff Forum, and ex-communications co-ordinator with Experiences Canada, amongst other past experience.
Peter Wall is director of communications to Solomon.
Wall called time on a number of roles to pivot to working for Solomon, and up until being hired by the minister this summer was busy as a strategic adviser with Gander Social, chairman of Tap Global, a partner and executive producer with Narrative Bridge Media, co-founder of PNP Studio, and a founder of Elbows Up, Canada!
Between 2018 and 2023, Wall worked for Argo Blockchain, a cryptocurrency mining company, last as chief executive officer.
In a recent LinkedIn post noting his new job, Wall wrote that leaving those aforementioned roles to work for Solomon “wasn’t an easy decision,” but that he ultimately decided it “was too important and too exciting an opportunity to pass up” as a “chance to serve the country and help shape how Canada navigates this critical moment.”
Wall’s lengthy CV includes almost a decade spent working as a video-journalist for the CBC, for both CBC News: Sunday and The National. Solomon, a former journalist himself, was a co-anchor of CBC News: Sunday when Wall worked on the show, and in his recent LinkedIn post, Wall noted the job was also a chance “to team up once more” with Solomon “on a mission we both believe in.”
“This is Canada’s first-ever ministry dedicated to AI—a recognition that we are at a pivotal moment in history where technology, the economy, and society are colliding in profound ways. My role is to help tell the story of how Canada can lead: building trust, scaling innovation, driving adoption, and ensuring our digital future is sovereign, secure, and serves Canadians,” wrote Wall.
Since leaving the public broadcaster in 2011, Wall has also been director of operations for the start-up Mobio Interactive, and director of communications for Canada C3, among other things.
Working with Wall are press secretary and issues adviser Sofia Ouslis and senior digital communications adviser Camellia Celestino.
Ouslis previously filled a similar role in the housing minister’s office. Originally hired as a communications adviser to then-minister Fraser in August 2024, she was soon after promoted to press secretary, and stuck with the office after Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith took over as housing, infrastructure, and communities minister in December 2024—a role Erskine-Smith held through to this past May.
After Robertson was sworn in as housing minister on May 13, Ouslis initially stuck around to help with media requests, and officially joined Solomon’s team on July 14.
Celestino was likewise most recently tackling digital communications for the federal housing minister, having first been hired as a communications planner under then-minister Fraser in 2023. She’s also a former special assistant for communications to then-fisheries and oceans minister Joyce Murray, communications assistant to then-sports minister Pascale St-Onge, and an ex-aide to then-Quebec Liberal MP Michel Picard, among other past jobs.
Also coming from Fraser’s old housing team is Linda Hooper, who’s been hired as executive assistant in Solomon’s office. She’s also a past executive assistant to then-FedDev Ontario minister Helena Jaczek, then-veterans affairs minister Lawrence MacAulay, then-democratic institutions minister Karina Gould, and has worked in the Liberal research bureau and in the Hill offices of now-Defence Minister David McGuinty and then-Liberal MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj.
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