The political community in Peterborough, Ont. wasn’t surprised to learn their local MP, Democratic Reform Minister Maryam Monsef, was in fact born in Iran. Many had heard it before.

Mayor Daryl Bennett says he recalls one debate at the Lions Centre, during the campaign, when Monsef described herself as a person “of Persian descent” – not Afghan.

It gave Bennett pause that she didn’t mention Afghanistan.

Michael Skinner, who ran as a Conservative against Monsef in the general election in 2015, said he was told during the campaign, by former classmates, that Monsef was in fact born in Iran.

“We definitely heard rumours,” Skinner said. “But at no point in time did the campaign have any evidence – it was rumour. So we decided to ignore it.

“Basically they were saying that she’d changed where she was born, during her school years, because Afghanistan had more recognition,” Skinner said.

Monsef previously claimed to be born in Afghanistan until, she says, her mother revealed to her last week that she was born in Iran and lived there for much of her early life before coming to Canada in 1996, at the age of 11. Her previous narrative as the first Afghan-born MP was widely known and celebrated in political circles and even cited by President Barack Obama in his June address to Parliament.

Dean Del Mastro, the former Conservative MP, said people who run political campaigns in Peterborough all knew that Monsef wasn’t born in Afghanistan.

“That’s been known for quite awhile,” he said. “This story that she’s just learned is not true ... It’s not a new revelation. It’s been closely held in political circles.”

Meanwhile, Conservative leadership candidate Tony Clement is calling for Monsef to temporarily step down while there’s an investigation into her citizenship application process.

“Clearly something has gone awry and it was not picked up either at the initial screening or during the screening of Minister Monsef for cabinet,” Clement, the MP for Parry Sound-Muskoka, said Thursday.

“Treat it like any other case, where I’m sure if a Canadian was discovered to have had a different birthplace than the one submitted for processing we’d have an investigation to confirm all the rest of the information was correct.”

Media reports say Monsef has Herat, Afghanistan, listed as her place of birth on her passport but steps are now being taken to correct that.

According to the Citizenship Act, a person can potentially lose citizenship for false representation.

- with files from Joelle Kovach