For those who don’t quite understand Canada’s parliamentary system of government, a Member of Parliament (MP) elected to the House of Commons in Ottawa is similar to a Congressman in the House of Representatives. MP’s in Canada are eligible to be chosen to form the Prime Minister’s Cabinet, i.e., appointed as government Ministers to oversee various departments, for example, the Department of Health, Department of Public Safety, etc. Then there is the former Department of Citizenship and Immigration that was once headed by Chris Alexander, the fine Conservative Minister of Citizenship and Immigration under the former Harper Government (and former ambassador to Afghanistan), but then the Liberal Trudeau government changed that department to the Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada to reflect the priority it was placing upon refugee settlement into Canada.
With that said, an important player in the settlement of refugees is Canada’s Minister of Democratic Institutions, Maryam Monsef, who is part of a cabinet committee in charge of “supervising the influx of Syrian refugees”; yet her main responsibility is perhaps a heftier one, that of electoral reform; i.e., overhauling Canada’s democratic system. A troubling new revelation has emerged: Monsef is not an Afghan as she claimed to be, but an Iranian. Now, she “could be stripped of her citizenship without a hearing under a law the Liberals denounced while in opposition.”
Monsef was showcased in a heartfelt story in January, in which she deceptively reflected on her childhood as an Afghan refugee and how she overcame obstacles to rise to the heights of being appointed by Trudeau to his Cabinet as the Minister of Democratic Institutions.
The dishonesty and broken moral compass of Maryam Monsef is appalling. In a sadder feature, a paralyzed Afghan teen artist referred to Monsef as her “idol”, prompting Monsef to state that the teens story was a “reminder of the resilience of the human spirit that even in the most difficult conditions individuals can do great things…. I am flattered by her attention, and I hope I can serve as a positive role model.”
Another interesting influential appointment: Trudeau appointed Sharia law advocate Omar Alghabra to the position of Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs. Muslim Brotherhood front groups are said to have been successfully (and alarmingly) targeting the Canadian Parliament.
Some other interesting stirrings in Canada:
- A prominent imam in Canada revealed his goals of dawah, Sharia and to establish the “ummah” in Canada
- It has recently come to light how the Muslim community was mobilized to help Trudeau become Prime Minister of Canada.
- “Trudeau has repeatedly declared that he is ‘deeply disturbed’ by the increasing Islamophobia in Canada, and joining governments from around the world in condemning such heinous acts towards Muslim communities”.
- Six Canadian cities signed a charter against Islamophobia.
- While Trudeau warned of jihadists returning to Canada, he visited a terror-linked mosque in the name of diversity.
Regarding Maryam Monsef, one has to ask the question of why background checks failed to reveal that she was lying about being an Afghan refugee. Perhaps those “checks” were as efficient as some of those at airports that let women (or men) concealed in burqas pass through TSA screening while everyone else faces the degradation of x-rays and/or pat-downs. But the Liberals are already in defensive mode on Monsef’s behalf:
The minister’s office did not respond to a question about the place of birth recorded on Monsef’s citizenship, permanent residency and refugee applications, saying in a statement only that the minister “is committed to addressing this matter and has stated she will work to resolve it.”
Monsef, meanwhile, is brazenly defending herself, forgetting that she is a public servant and attempting to cast her scandal as a mere personal matter, stating:
Who I am has not changed and this is something that my family and I will work out together. However, my commitment to (her constituency of) Peterborough-Kawartha, my commitment to this file, they’ve not changed.
They haven’t changed? Really? As a Minister who lied about being an Afghan refugee when she was an Iranian, and was appointed to be in charge of overhauling Canada’s electoral system and also given a mandate to resettle incoming refugees, one would hope that much has changed.
Meanwhile, Global News did a report that included a video with the caption: “WATCH: Afghan cabinet minister Maryam Monsef’s refugee story changes.”
The reported also stated:
The narrative of Monsef as a successfully integrated refugee and the first Afghan-born MP has been a central one for the Liberal government since it won power last fall. Monsef was even singled out by U.S. President Barack Obama during his address to Canada’s Parliament this summer.
Now here’s a kicker: Obama pointed to Monsef as….
an example of what’s possible when refugees are embraced in this land of immigrants and strangers.
“Maryam Monsef could be stripped of her citizenship without a hearing after revealing she was born in Iran”, by Joan Bryden, National Post, September 27, 2016:
OTTAWA — Maryam Monsef could be stripped of her citizenship without a hearing under a law the Liberals denounced while in opposition but which they’ve been enforcing aggressively since taking power, civil liberties and refugee lawyers say.
The democratic institutions minister revealed last week that she was born in Iran, not Afghanistan as she’d long believed. She said her mother, who fled Afghanistan with her daughters when Monsef was 11, didn’t think it mattered where the minister was born since she was still legally considered an Afghan citizen.
Monsef has said she will have to correct her birthplace information on her passport.
If Monsef’s birthplace was misrepresented on her refugee claim and was relevant to the ruling on her case, her citizenship could be revoked, regardless of whether it was an innocent mistake or the fault of her mother, said immigration lawyer Lorne Waldman.
She could even be deported, said Waldman, part of a group that launched a constitutional challenge of the law Monday.
The minister’s office did not respond to a question about the place of birth recorded on Monsef’s citizenship, permanent residency and refugee applications, saying in a statement only that the minister “is committed to addressing this matter and has stated she will work to resolve it.”
The Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association argue that the citizenship revocation law, known as Bill C-24, is procedurally unfair and a violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Josh Paterson, the BCCLA’s executive director, said Monsef’s case demonstrates the absurdity of the law, which was passed by the previous Conservative government.
“The minister’s situation … is exactly the kind of situation that many other Canadians are facing right now because of this unjust process,” Paterson told a news conference.
“When we get a parking ticket, we have a right to a court hearing … You leave your garbage in the wrong place and you get a ticket, you have the right to a hearing and yet for citizens to lose their entitlement to membership in Canada based on allegations of something they may or may not have said 20 years ago, they have no hearing? It just doesn’t make any sense.”
When he was in opposition, John McCallum denounced the law as “dictatorial” and since becoming immigration minister, he’s promised to amend it to create an appeal process, Paterson said.
Nevertheless, repeated requests that the government stop enforcing the law until it can be changed have been ignored. As recently as two weeks ago, Paterson said Justice Department lawyers informed his group that the law would continue to be enforced.
Indeed, he said the Liberal government has been enforcing the law “aggressively,” setting targets to strip 40 to 60 Canadians each month of their citizenship.
McCallum said Monday that the government is “certainly considering options for changes” in the law. He did not say why the government is enforcing it with such zeal in the meantime.
His department, meanwhile, denied that it imposes a target for the number of revocations each month. But it does have “performance standards targets” to ensure it has the resources to efficiently review and resolve cases.
According to the department, 206 individuals have been stripped of their citizenship since May 2015 — about 18 per month….
Under the law, a single government official acts as investigator, prosecutor and decision-maker, Waldman said. A person who receives a notice of citizenship revocation has no right to a hearing or an appeal and has no chance to argue that he or she ought to retain citizenship on humanitarian grounds.
The Federal Court issued a temporary stay of proceedings in a number of revocation cases earlier this year, but Waldman said that relief is available only to those who can afford a lawyer.
The purpose of Monday’s legal challenge is to win a stay for all Canadians who face the loss of their citizenship.
Earlier Monday at an electoral reform event, Monsef shrugged off a suggestion from Conservative leadership contender Tony Clement that she should step down as minister pending an investigation into her citizenship application process.
The confusion over her birthplace is “a very big deal for me personally and for my family,” she said.
“But who I am has not changed and this is something that my family and I will work out together. However, my commitment to (her constituency of) Peterborough-Kawartha, my commitment to this file, they’ve not changed.”