Maryam Monsef

Maryam Monsef (born Maryam Monsefzadeh, 7 November 1984) is an Afghan-Canadian politician who represented Peterborough—Kawartha in the House of Commons from 2015 to 2021 as a member of the Liberal Party.¹ She served as minister of democratic institutions and president of the Queen's Privy Council from 2015 to 2017, as minister for women and gender equality from 2017 to 2021, as minister of international development in 2019, and as minister of rural economic development from 2019 to 2021.¹

Monsef was born at the Imam Reza Hospital in Mashhad, Iran, to Afghan parents who had fled during the Soviet–Afghan War, and she lived with her family in Herat, Afghanistan, in 1987–1988 and 1993–1996.¹ Her father was killed on the Iran–Afghanistan border while travelling in 1988.¹ In 1996 the family moved to Canada and settled in Peterborough, Ontario, where they relied on the support of charities including the YMCA and the Salvation Army.¹ She enrolled at Trent University in 2003 and graduated in 2010 with a bachelor's degree in biology and psychology.¹ Monsef holds dual citizenship with Afghanistan.¹

In 2014 Monsef ran for mayor of Peterborough and finished a close second; later that year she was nominated as the Liberal candidate for the 2015 federal election, which she won with 43.8 percent of the vote.¹ Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appointed her to the cabinet on 4 November 2015 as minister of democratic institutions, and she moved to the women and gender equality portfolio on 10 January 2017.¹ She was defeated in the 2021 federal election.¹

As minister of democratic institutions, Monsef led the government's electoral-reform process: she announced the composition of the Special Committee on Electoral Reform in May 2016, the government accepted an opposition motion changing that composition the following month, and in late 2016 her department commissioned the MyDemocracy.ca online survey.¹ In early 2017 she was replaced in the portfolio and the government's promise to replace the first-past-the-post electoral system was not pursued further.¹

The judgements in this section belong to their sources, not to the museum. Monsef had stated that she was born in Afghanistan; when it emerged in September 2016 that she was born in Iran, some commentators raised the possibility that her Canadian citizenship could be revoked, and her office later revealed that she had travelled to Iran on pilgrimage visas in 2010, 2013 and 2014 to visit the Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad.¹ Following the release of the Electoral Reform Committee's final report, Monsef criticised its members for not answering the questions put to them, remarks that committee members considered inaccurate and offensive.¹ In November 2020 she accidentally left her microphone on during a virtual House of Commons vote, and her remark about her salary was broadcast.¹

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