(This column originally appeared in th

Liberal MP Maryam Monsef tried to move back to Afghanistan in 2014. Instead she visited Iran where she was encouraged to run for office here in Canada.

This is according to a French-language profile in Le Devoir written well before it was revealed Monsef was born in Iran, not Afghanistan as she claims she’s always believed.

In the story, Monsef says she couldn’t enter Afghanistan because “it was not safe”. Then once in Iran, she says, she worked with Afghan refugees and was “encouraged to enter politics” in Canada.

This visit to Iran – a country with incredibly strict entry and exit rules – raises serious red flags, according to immigration experts and some in the Iranian community.

In 2012, the Harper government severed diplomatic ties with Iran and closed the Iranian embassy in Ottawa. Due to this, travel between Canada and Iran became increasingly difficult.

In 2014, the Iranian regime made it even more difficult for Canadians who do not have status in Iran to travel there. Canadian citizens who do not hold Iranian passports were banned from visiting Iran except through state-sanctioned tours.

“It’s a bit frustrating, and some of it is intentional,” Guidy Mamann, a prominent immigration lawyer in Toronto, says of the restrictions.

“It’s manufactured red tape because Iran wants to retaliate,” said Mamann. “They want to send a signal to Ottawa that they don’t appreciate what Ottawa, diplomatically, has done to them.”

According to another source, with close ties to the Persian community in Toronto, it’s very unlikely that the Islamic Republic of Iran would grant a tourist visa to a single woman travelling on a Canadian passport.

“There is no question about that,” said Mamann, when asked whether…READ MORE

e Toronto Sun)

(This column originally appeared in the Toronto Sun)

When it comes to immigration, elites don’t seem to trust Canadians to hold the right opinions.

They’re paranoid. They think we’re all secretly racist, waiting for an opportunity to pick up a pitchfork and chase immigrants we see out of town.

And the CBC has given these elites more reason to look down their noses at everyday people.

“Canadians aren’t as accepting as we think,” read a recent headline on CBC.ca.

The article, written by pollster Angus Reid, took aim at the social myth Canada is a multicultural utopia and that Canadians are open to any and all immigration.

Reid’s poll found almost seven in ten Canadians believe newcomers should “do more to fit in” when they come to Canada. Only 32% thought we should encourage newcomers to keep their own customs and language.

In the U.S. the split is closer to 50/50.

So, are Canadians suddenly less tolerant than our American neighbours?

Despite the predictable handwringing by many on the left, this poll simply confirms what we all know.

Canadians are a welcoming and generous people, but there are limits to our openness.

When it comes to immigration, Canadians expect newcomers to join the Canadian family and that they’ll learn the local language, contribute to our economy and respect our laws and traditions. We hope they’ll branch out into the broader community and truly become Canadian.

These are not unreasonable views. In fact, this is what most newcomers expect when they pick up and move to a new country.

Our expectation that newcomers will integrate into Canadian society is part of the…READ MORE

What’s happening in Canada and around the world? 

The Maryam Monsef scandal continues to develop, despite the government’s and the media’s attempt to brush it off. The Toronto Star briefly mentioned Ms. Monsef if their coverage of John McCallum “coming to the aid of Canadians who are being stripped of their citizenship without a hearing” (if they lied on their citizenship application). Unfortunately for the government and to those on the Left, Canadians know the truth – the Liberal government is willing and may be attempting to change the law in order to protect Maryam Monsef. And if they can’t change the law, they’re looking to place a “moratorium” on the practice to save her.

Last week, Angus Reid released a national poll in which 68% of Canadian respondents said newcomers should do more to fit in with mainstream society instead of keeping their own customs and languages. Cue the Left’s outrage! Let’s try to change their minds! How dare Canadians believe integration is important for immigrants and refugees?

Regardless of how the Left attempts to spin the poll results, the fact remains that integration is an incredibly important aspect of immigration.  Former B.C. premier and Liberal MP, Ujjal Dosanjh sums it up well, by saying, “what you want is creative multiculturalism, generous multiculturalism, but not unthinking or mindless multiculturalism where everything anybody brings to this country is acceptable”.

Stephane Dion was in the news again last week, and again – for all the wrong reasons. Dion, Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister, gave two thumbs down in the House of Commons while Conservative MP Michael Cooper raised the case of Alison Azer and her attempt to bring her kids back to Canada. Azer’s former husband is wanted by Canadian police for kidnapping their children and taking them to Iran 14 months ago. This is a serious international issue, and neither side should be playing partisan politics. But of course, the Prime Minister thinks this is the perfect issue to attack the Conservatives. Shameful. 

(This column originally appeared in the Toronto Sun)

The Maryam Monsef scandal gets more serious with each passing day.

Monsef’s office declined an interview with the Toronto Sun, but for each day she remains silent, the case against her continues to mount.

The latest call for a full investigation into Monsef’s case is from Lloyd Fournier, a retired adjudicator from the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB).

The former senior IRB judge specialized in refugee claims from the Middle East, including both Afghanistan and Iran. He presided over thousands of cases during his career.

There is “something very odd in the Maryam Monsef story,” Fournier wrote in his personal blog.

I spoke to Fournier about the Monsef file, and about refugee applications in general from Iran and Afghanistan during the mid-1990s – when the Monsef family came to Canada.

A person’s country of origin, that is, where a person was born “makes a huge difference” on a refugee application, said Fournier.

Cases are determined based on the likelihood of persecution in a specific country, and the ability of that country to provide protection. Where a person was born is a central point of reference for an IRB judge.

According to Fournier, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act establishes claims based on a “well-founded fear of persecution.”

Each refugee application is considered on a case by case basis, but, he noted, it would have helped the Monsef family’s case to claim they were from Afghanistan rather than Iran.

“The facts are that at the time the Monsef family claim was made at the IRB, a higher percentage of Afghan claims were successful than claims from Iran,” said Fournier.

So while some Liberals try to spin that Monsef being born a mere 373 kilometers away is “no big deal” – the law says otherwise. “Lying in order to get one’s way in court,” Fournier said, is a very “big deal.”

“It diminishes credibility in her refugee claim,” said Fournier.

He also notes that the law in question…READ MORE

(This column originally appeared in the Toronto Sun)

The Trudeau Liberals have spun themselves into a corner when it comes to Maryam Monsef.

It now looks as if Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is willing to change Canada’s citizenship and immigration laws to protect one of his own.

Monsef says her mother recently told her she was born in Iran, not Afghanistan, as she had previously been told.

If her immigration application, when she was a child, included false information about her birthplace, then it is possible her immigration application was fraudulent.

The penalty for providing false representation to immigration officials is steep.

In similar cases where a parent provided untrue information on behalf of a child, it has led to the stripping of citizenship and even deportation from Canada.

As I pointed out in my last column, the Trudeau government recently stripped citizenship from an Egyptian national who became a Canadian citizen at age eight.

In that case, the woman’s parents lied on her application, and therefore, as per Canadian law, she risks being deported.

But when it comes to their own star cabinet minister, Monsef, the Trudeau Liberals are scrambling to deal with the controversy.

On Tuesday, Immigration Minister John McCallum testified in front of a Senate committee discussing Bill C-6, the Trudeau government’s controversial citizenship bill.

Under pressure from Liberals in the Senate, McCallum suggested that his government would consider placing a moratorium on the practice of citizenship revocation.

How convenient.

“I will consider that moratorium. I won’t rule it out unconditionally,” McCallum told the Senate committee. “What I am saying is that we would welcome a reform to the system.”

The Trudeau government had no problem imposing this law during its first eleven months in office. None at all.

During the last session of Parliament, Trudeau and McCallum introduced comprehensive changes to Canada’s citizenship and immigration laws through Bill C-6.

On the issue of citizenship revocation, Bill C-6 halted the…READ MORE

(This column originally appeared in the Toronto Sun)

As you’ve probably heard by now, Maryam Monsef was born in Iran – not Afghanistan.

After being praised as the ultimate refugee success story, Canada’s first cabinet minister from Afghanistan, we learned last week that the story she had presented was not accurate.

Monsef claims that she never knew the true story about where she was born and how she spent the first decade of her life. It was only after a media investigation and questions from a journalist that she asked her mother and was told the truth.

But the journalist, Robert Fife of the Globe and Mail, was acting upon a tip. Somebody else knew the truth, and reached out to members of the national media to encourage a probe.

Once the truth was revealed, other political figures in Monsef’s hometown of Peterborough, Ontario, came forward to reveal that they, too, had heard similar stories.

The question then becomes: if rumours were spinning around Peterborough about Monsef’s life story, and if anonymous tipsters were encouraging journalists to investigate, how is it that Monsef herself was the last to know?

It’s plausible that her version of events is completely accurate, that she didn’t know the truth until last week. But common sense would tell us that Monsef had likely heard these rumours in the past. So why didn’t she ask her mother sooner?

Immigration lawyers have come forward to suggest Monsef may have committed a crime – using false information on her refugee and citizenship application – and the penalty could be as serious as citizenship revocation and deportation.

Canada has stripped citizenship away from hundreds of people for this very reason. Providing false information to citizenship officials makes a person inadmissible to Canada, a long-standing policy that predates the Harper government.

In fact, during the last election campaign, Justin Trudeau himself praised this practice.

“Revocation of citizenship can and should happen in situations of becoming a Canadian citizen under false pretences,” said Trudeau on September 28, 2015 after the Munk foreign policy debate in Toronto.

“Indeed, when people have lied on their applications, those applications get rescinded. Even years later,” said Trudeau.

In Monsef’s case, it seems that either she or her mother hid the truth when applying for Canadian citizenship. If that’s the case, then Monsef became a citizen under false pretences.

One year ago, Trudeau said…READ MORE