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She has listed Herat, Afghanistan as her birthplace on her passport and is now taking steps to correct her official documentation.

Monsef said she also learned that she spent most of the early years of her life in Iran with her mother and two younger sisters before they arrived in Canada as refugees.

They were saying that she’d changed where she was born, during her school years, because Afghanistan had more recognition

The Liberal minister said Thursday that the first she heard of her birthplace being questioned was last week when the Globe and Mail phoned her office to ask where she was born.

Monsef said in an interview with Postmedia that she then left a phone message with her mother, Soriya Basir. The minister was in a car en route from Kitchener to Toronto, as part of her cross-country tour on electoral reform, when her mother reached her by cellphone.

That’s when her mother told her she was actually born in Iran and spent most of her early childhood there.

Monsef said she was shocked.

“It was a lot to take in, all at once,” she told Postmedia. “It took me a few hours to get back in that car.”

The Prime Minister’s Office, which was caught off guard, did not comment Thursday and directed reporters to a statement Monsef released early in the day.

Monsef appeared visibly shaken Thursday night in Prince Edward Island when faced with questions about when she found out she was born in Iran.

Her voice wavered as she described how the controversy about her background has affected her personally.

“I’m experiencing a wide range of emotions over the past week and especially today,” said Monsef, who was in P.E.I. for a town hall on electoral reform.