Monsef: I was born in Iran
OTTAWA — Liberal MP Maryam Monsef, widely touted as Canada’s first Afghan-born cabinet minister, has issued a statement saying she only recently learned from her mother that she was in fact born in Iran.
The minister of democratic institutions, who will turn 32 on Nov. 7, says she and her two sisters never held Iranian citizenship and were always considered Afghan citizens, but she was not born in Herat, Afghanistan, “as I was led to believe for my whole life.”
“It’s fair to say I have experienced a range of emotions over the past few days as I have tried to understand this with my family,” says the statement.
Monsef said she’s learned she was actually born 200 kilometres from the Afghanistan border in Mashhad, Iran.
Monsef, born in 1984, says her parents fled Afghanistan as the security situation deteriorated, and that after her father’s death her mother never talked about what Monsef calls “the unspeakable pain” of those early years.
“She told us she did not think it mattered,” Monsef said of her mother, Soriya Basir.
“We were Afghan citizens, as we were born to Afghan parents, and under Iranian law, we would not be considered Iranian citizens despite being born in that country.”
Profiles of Monsef since her appointment to cabinet last Nov. 4 have consistently referenced her family travelling back and forth across the Afghanistan-Iran border as the security situation allowed.
The Monsefs came to Peterborough, Ont., as refugees in 1996 when Maryam was 11 years old.
U.S. President Barack Obama, in an address to Parliament earlier this year, made a point of noting Monsef ’s Afghan heritage as a sign of Canada’s inclusiveness.
“And we see the refugees who feel that they have a special duty to give back, and seize the opportunity of a new life,” Obama told a joint session of Parliament on June 29.
“Like the girl who fled Afghanistan by donkey and camel and jet plane.
“And who remembers being greeted in this country by helping hands and the sounds of robins singing.
“And today she serves in this chamber and in the cabinet because Canada is her home.” Canadian Press
OTTAWA — Canada and China are launching exploratory talks towards a free trade agreement, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday during a visit that saw the Chinese premier publicly defend his country’s use of the death penalty.
The ever-present clash of economic interests and human rights was on full display, as it always is in Sino-Canadian relations. But Li Keqiang displayed an easy familiarity with his host — one celebrated over a beer the night before at the prime minister’s Harrington Lake retreat — as the two leaders pushed forward their economic agenda.
Both leaders also acknowledged the thornier issues in their relationship, including ongoing political opposition in Canada to a potential extradition deal with China, which practices capital punishment and has a dubious human rights record.
As well, there is the spectre of China’s “Operation Fox Hunt” — its international pursuit and harassment of so-called economic fugitives and other dissidents.
Standing next to Trudeau in the foyer of the House of Commons, Li denied his country sends foreign agents abroad.
But he calmly addressed head-on the issue of capital punishment in his country — providing an elegant contrast to the tongue-lashing his foreign minister gave a reporter who asked him about human rights earlier this year in Ottawa. Li defended it, saying its use is overseen by his country’s highest court. China has a large population, he explained, and that includes violent crime.
“It is consistent with our national condition,” the Chinese leader said. “If we abolish the death penalty, innocent people will lose their lives.”
In addition to the trade talks, the two leaders pledged to double bilateral trade by 2025 and announced a pair of breakthroughs in agriculture. They reached an agreement to try to end a lingering dispute over Canadian canola exports by 2020, although Trudeau offered no specifics.
Li also said China was lifting a ban on imports of bone-in beef less than 30 months old, a move that was immediately applauded by the Canadian Cattleman’s Association as a $10-million annual gain.
The decision reflected “China’s commitment to, and China’s goodwill to, farmers and producers in Canada,” Li said.
China has been eager to start free trade talks, but Canada has shown less enthusiasm — until Thursday.
During the prime minister’s own visit to China last month, Li said the two countries had embarked on a feasibility study of a free trade deal. But Canada’s ambassador to China later called that premature, citing issues including labour, the environment and Chinese state-owned enterprises. Those concerns now seem consigned to history.
Irritants, however, remain. Li and Trudeau both said they want to see a “science-based” solution to the canolaimpasse,whichrevolvesaroundthe amount of foreign material permitted in Canadian exports of the grain. Li said experts from both sides will work towards solutions, but in the interim, “we will continue to apply the previous practice.” Canada sold $2 billion worth of canola seed to China last year. The premier is the first Chinese leader to visit Canada in six years and both he and Trudeau said it would be the first of yearly meetings between the two of them, all aimed at strengthening economic ties.
Both leaders held a 90-minute meeting that was packed with officials from both countries, including several Canadian cabinet ministers.