Maryam Monsef: The Political Spotlight

Kortney Wilson  0:00  
Hi, I'm Kortney Wilson, and this is the shit stick of life podcast today, my guest, Myriam Monsef, was an Afghan refugee moved to Canada. Now let me just tell you, we are in a shit time in history. If you ask me, this podcast airs in so many places. I actually live in the US. So I want this to be empowering for people. So I want to, for lack of a better term, dumb it down, even though nobody's dummies out there. I want everybody to really, truly understand, and I feel like a lot of women are discouraged by politics and need to hear from people like Marian. She is an inspiration. She has been hit by the shit stick of life. She has survived it, and she is ready to tell her story. Welcome. Well, thank you so much. Take me back. Where are you from? Tell me a little bit about your story. That's probably

Maryam Monsef  1:05  
one of the most complicated questions you can ask an immigrant, especially a refugee. But I was born an Afghan refugee in Iran, and my parents decided to leave Afghanistan early on so that I would be born in a safer place than what that place was at the time, only child, I was followed by two other humans. I am the older sister of three girls. We would have probably, you know, stayed there or moved somewhere to Europe, except my dad was killed when I was very young. So my mom's a 24 year old widow in a place that doesn't recognize female heads of households. It's hard for her to find work. There's a lot of uncertainty. She's going to be deported. We're going back and forth between the border of Iran and Afghanistan for long enough for me to start getting marriage proposals at the age of 10. So later on,

Kortney Wilson  2:06  
I was going to ask you what your motivation was for your career. But it's becoming already very clear, there's

Maryam Monsef  2:13  
not a single second of any of our lives that is not affected by politics, no matter where you are in the world.

Kortney Wilson  2:23  
Okay, so your mom, at 24 moves to Canada as a refugee. When

Maryam Monsef  2:28  
my mom was 24 she became a widow, and she tried to make it work. She had siblings who were helpful, she cooked, she cleaned, she did her best, she we homeschooled a lot, and I learned a lot from her, and we had a pretty great upbringing. Actually, we were poor, but we didn't know it. My sisters and I were spoiled in all the real meaningful ways you can spoil children. Now, as a mother, I understand how spoiled we really were, and when I get my first marriage proposal at the age of 10, she realizes she's at a crossroad. She either marries us off because financial security, and, you know, just making sure that my daughters are okay, or she has to leave, and that's a bigger risk, because she's going to give up her support system. She's going to have to start in a place where she doesn't speak the language, and so she chooses to come to Canada because her brother is here. And so has she

Kortney Wilson  3:24  
ever told you if she considered the proposal for you? Oh, no, that was not an

Maryam Monsef  3:30  
option for her. Never an option for her. No, my mom was raised by a very progressive man. Her her dad wanted her to continue schooling, and she got a lot of proposals, as is the norm. It's not a bad thing. It's it's just the way it is. She got many proposals as a young woman, and her father protected her, and he wanted her to become the first doctor in the family. And with all that support, and with those barriers removed, she actually got a full scholarship to study medicine abroad, and her bags are packed. She said her goodbyes, and then they get word that her brother, who was studying Pharmacy in Kabul, had been overheard making anti communist remarks on a bus. His dormitories invaded. He's taken never to be seen or heard from again, and the war now has landed on their doorsteps, and so she's not going anywhere. So her dreams were shattered. She becomes a teacher instead, and then the Taliban come into power. And so, you know, barrier after barrier, this woman overcomes them, and she believed from a very young age that she was going to provide her daughters with the opportunity to stand on their own feet. Where

Kortney Wilson  4:41  
is your mom? Now? She's at home watching

Maryam Monsef  4:43  
my toddler.

Kortney Wilson  4:46  
I love that. So she's here in Canada. In

Maryam Monsef  4:48  
Canada, Yep, she's a force to be reckoned with. So, you know,

Kortney Wilson  4:52  
I was saying many women feel disconnected from politics because they feel like it doesn't really affect them. And you just said, everything is. Affected by politics,

Maryam Monsef  5:01  
water we drink, the food we eat, what our kids are taught, the care that our children and our parents receive at critical stages in their lives, the jobs we have, the money we make or don't make, the decisions that are made about do we go to war, the trade conversations right now that are going to affect our economies and our bank accounts. So

Kortney Wilson  5:24  
why do you think women respond that way? I think the reluctance

Maryam Monsef  5:28  
for some women to participate in politics is more about the pushback that we get when we voice our opinions than it is about us not being sure about the relevance of politics. Women run households. The majority of spending happens by women. We get it. In fact, we viscerally get it because of politics. Women couldn't get a mortgage without the signature of their husband or their fathers because of politics. Women couldn't vote or put their name on a ballot. So we get it. It's in our DNA. It's

Kortney Wilson  6:05  
really interesting that you say that because we both have lived somewhat of a public you know, we're about public figures, and we live in the public eye. And even today, every time I go to post something, I actually think about how people are going to respond to it, and I have to make a decision on whether or not I'm equipped to handle it that day. You

Maryam Monsef  6:21  
know, you got to protect your peace. And you know the pushback that women get. You know, there was pushback when we entered the workforce. There was pushback when we, you know, got the right to vote. There's pushback now as more and more of us are in leadership positions or high profile positions, yeah, take a look at any one of our Twitter feeds and think for yourself what pushback looks and feels like. So I think if we're not seeing as many women as we'd like to see participating in political processes and in democracy on both sides of our borders, in Canada and US, it has a lot more to do with political violence and that painful hateful rhetoric than anything else. Well,

Kortney Wilson  7:02  
on that note, you ended up in office. So take me from

Maryam Monsef  7:09  
the shit storm. That was my first year in politics.

Speaker 1  7:15  
Let's get actually before the shit storm, the part where you were super inspired and

Kortney Wilson  7:22  
yeah, yeah. Period of your life. Go back to that period of which you were like, Oh my gosh, I have stars in my eyes, and this is what I want to go after.

Maryam Monsef  7:31  
Okay, let me be clear. I hate politics. I hate everything about it. It's It's mean, it's cut and thrust, but I believe that it's the only way to make a difference. And so I never grew up thinking about or dreaming about politics. I was going to be a teacher. You know, that was your dream. Yeah, it's, it's the most noble profession, and I believe deeply in the power of an education and the power of a good educator. I've been very blessed to have those influences in my life. So my interest in politics actually grew. Probably I went to Trent University that helped. I would find myself on Monday nights at the council chamber, and back when Twitter was fun and kind and Twitter and Twitter and a place where you built community, you could crowdsource ideas, and it was fun. And you could, you know, live tweet an entire, you know, Othello production, and people would tune in, or Shawshank redemptions, which I once did, you did, and people followed on. I didn't get hate back then, I think very few as did. But I would live tweet the proceedings in council, because I was interested, how do they make decisions? And I wanted to inform the community, and I had time. So my interest grew from the process then and then they tried to cut our busses, and then they were making decisions about homeless. What do you mean trying to cut your busses? Okay, so, yeah, I was raised by a single mom, and I've had a job since I was 12, and one of almost all the jobs I had required me to take public transit, and at one point we had a council in place that was going to cut busses on Sundays in Peterborough as a student working part time, and Saturdays and Sundays were the days where I could have hours and actually make money to support myself in whatever way. So I got really angry when people who'd never been on a bus were making decisions about the system, when people who'd never been to the grocery store and wanted to swipe their card and didn't know if it was going to be declined or not, or making decisions about today, people

Kortney Wilson  9:46  
who have never had a period making decisions about our bodies,

Maryam Monsef  9:50  
or people have never had a job running for the top job. So

Kortney Wilson  9:53  
interesting. Oh my goodness, yeah. Okay,

Maryam Monsef  9:55  
so that's odd to me, and you know I was involved in you. Various political campaigns for progressive teams. And you know, eventually people started asking me to run. And I think it took 14 people who asked me to run for mayor of Peterborough.

Kortney Wilson  10:12  
And for those of you listening, Peterborough is a city. Is a great city, great city in Ontario. What like an hour and a half from, okay, yeah. Okay, yeah. Now at the time, is there a female mayor in office? Has there ever been a female man one

Maryam Monsef  10:25  
at the time? Okay, yeah. And I'm 29 years old, and I'm working my phones in contacts to find someone to run so that the incumbent doesn't run uncontested, and no one wants to do it. And then finally I realized, I guess it's me, and I decide to talk to 150 people before I do it. And of the 150 people I talk to, the majority say, do it? Go for a girl. We've got your back. We'll knock doors for you. We'll raise money for you. We'll volunteer for you. Your breath of fresh air, you've got this. And then maybe like eight to 10% say, Aren't you a little too young for the job. The minimum age is 18. Shouldn't you get a little more education first? Shouldn't you run for a lower position first? How are you gonna get the money? He's gonna blow you out of the water. How are you gonna walk into that room and earn the respect of all those men? You're gonna knock on their doors and they're gonna be really nice to you to your face, but as you're leaving, they're gonna say, She's nice, but she's a Muslim, and that few conversations that were so discouraging had me change my mind four times about running. I almost didn't run because, like all those things were legit. Those are all reasons to be afraid. Those are all reasons not to do it. What did your mom say? You know, it surprises me, still to this day, how supportive she is about these big risks I take, and it shouldn't surprise me, because she took the business, even in this recent election, she's like, You should run I'm in school, I'm running a business. I have a toddler, yeah, a lot. And no, she's, I think for her too, like she's, she's given up a lot of dreams. So you run, I put my name on a ballot, and we run one hell of a campaign, and I lose by about 1300 no votes. But it doesn't feel like a loss, and a few days later, leaders of progressive parties are calling me to run for their federal campaign coming up, and I end up running with the liberals, and I get elected, and it's like 1036 and the numbers have been called and we've won, and I'm sitting there stunned. I'm like, okay, so what just happened? We won.

Kortney Wilson  12:45  
Excuse my ignorance too, because I moved at 18 years old to Nashville, Tennessee and the south. So I miss you. Yeah, I miss Canada, especially right now. But I I don't know as much about Canadian politics as I should, because I am completely everyday enthralled and in the middle of American politics, my friend actually run for the governor. He's liberal. He ran for the governor of Tennessee a couple of years ago, knowing he would lose because we are red state, and I can talk circles around a lot of things there, but then I come here and it's run so differently, and I'm really trying to educate myself. So how does it come to be here in Canada where you just get elected?

Maryam Monsef  13:30  
So I've been in five elections, and the toughest race for me was the nomination race. Got it okay to be the one carrying the liberal flag and to be the Liberal candidate on the ballot, that was the toughest.

Kortney Wilson  13:45  
Had they ever had an Afghan woman? No, I'm,

Maryam Monsef  13:48  
unfortunately still the first and only Afghan in Parliament, still today, yes, but we have a candidate running this election in the federal race, and I really hope that she does well. But despite many great women running to be member parliament of Peterborough, in the past, Peterborough had not ever elected a woman for the job, and I became the first

Kortney Wilson  14:14  
what does that look like? Because this is the beginning of what I call your shit stick of life story,

Maryam Monsef  14:20  
really. Could, for most people, they're like, Oh, cool. So many super cool glass ceilings broken. You go, girl, it's smooth sailing from here,

Kortney Wilson  14:29  
not anything nearly as cool as what you've been through. But anytime I'm telling my story, and I say, you know, at 18, I moved to Nashville and I had $300 to my pocket, and I got a record deal, and they're like, amazing. I was like, and I'm signed to Disney, and they're like, that's so cool. And I was like, that was the beginning of the end, yeah, yeah. And they're like, wait, what? Yeah. So though it wasn't the beginning of the end, and you did more impactful things than I ever did. Don't say that. Well, you know, I just mean, you know, in pushing forward, but explain to me exactly what your role is in government during this time.

Maryam Monsef  14:58  
Okay, so as. Member of Parliament, your job is to represent about 100,000 120,000 constituents of yours, people who live in your community, to be their voice in Ottawa, to advocate for dollars to be flown to your riding, the constituency. You call it the district, I think yes, to make sure that the voice of the community on issues that matter, whether it's climate change or housing or women's issues, whatever it is, are reflected in government's decisions and policies and programs. I was additionally given the job of being a cabinet minister. So yes, I was a member of parliament, but I was also the Minister responsible for what was a hot potato file at the time. So democratic reform. Okay, my job was on day 29 I'm pretty sure it was day 29 as brand new MP, brand new cabinet minister was to introduce a new way for us to appoint senators, a new

Kortney Wilson  16:02  
way to appoint senators, so that it's more merit

Maryam Monsef  16:04  
based and not just based on partisan this guy, you know, did a solid for me, so I'm going to put him in the cabinet. And now, you know,

Kortney Wilson  16:13  
and is dei a part of that process in any way sort of, but you

Maryam Monsef  16:17  
got to be sure to include merit and dei can go hand in hand. They're not separate. In fact, a lot they always they always should. For the first time in Canada's history, we have gender balance in our Senate because of that. And it's not because in the history of Canada, there have never been enough qualified women to fill that chamber. It's because there have been so many barriers in the way. So dei stuff is about making sure that people don't get appointed because of the different identity markers they get checked off. They're there despite them. You know, overcome hardships. I

Kortney Wilson  16:54  
love that. I'm currently filming a show called Life is messy right now,

Maryam Monsef  17:01  
the morning, but

Kortney Wilson  17:03  
when we were going over all of the crew choices, we had the sound person open, and I said, we know a lot of sound people, and one of the producers said, Well, yes, but we're trying to find a woman specifically, or somebody of color to fulfill this role, because we feel like there aren't enough people that are given opportunities. And my assistant, who had grew up in the South, was on the call, and when we got off, she said, I've never heard a conversation like that had in my entire life about job placement as it related to dei and somebody who was fit for the job.

Maryam Monsef  17:41  
You're not gonna find someone who sucks at their job only to check off a box exactly. You're gonna bring somebody on board who's gonna change the way you think about do things. You're gonna bring someone who's gonna open you up to a whole new audience, and someone who's gonna hustle really hard for you. Because unfortunately, you know, if you're in a place that's not traditionally welcomed you or people like you before, you know you have to work that much harder to prove that you are there because of your qualifications and

Kortney Wilson  18:14  
skills. So now you're in office, and are you doing just that? That's just the

Maryam Monsef  18:19  
way that it is. Yes, and someday it won't be that. First year was the hardest, because I went in thinking everybody wants to work together and get shit done, and, no, actually, some people want to make sure you don't get things done, so that you don't get credit for it, even if they stand to gain from it. And I learned a lot of hard lessons the hard way. There'd never been anybody like me in that place. And so, you know, the the standards that apply to a mailer whiter version of me don't apply to me the same way I could say the exact same thing that a mailer whiter version of me would say, and the words coming out of my mouth would be perceived very differently than that may change that tighter version. I also don't know how politics works. There's no book, actually that says here's how to be an effective cabinet minister. So yeah, I learned the very hard way that institutions that are not designed for people like me, in fact, designed to keep people like me out, are going to push us out in macro and micro ways every day. So yeah, there were days when I didn't want to get

Kortney Wilson  19:23  
out of bed when you were in office. Did you have an ally back then that you would like to give a shout out to? Oh

Maryam Monsef  19:29  
my god, I had so many I wouldn't still be standing and talking about politics. The late great Jim Carr was my seat man in the House of Commons, and he had my back Memorial Capra, who's just retiring from politics, he was there. I have this whole kitchen cabinet of lovely humans, from Jonathan Bennett to Lynn Zimmer, who at any time of the night or day would take my calls and give good advice, would just listen and make soothing sounds and like I've got two sisters and. Anybody who has sisters, you know, like there are your ride or dies. And Lauren Hunter, who of course, ran the thing with me, and Andy Mitchell, like there's, there's hundreds, if not 1000s, of people whose efforts and care have kept me whole. Nobody gets anything done alone, you know that. And so yeah, and I guess Neil Morton was somewhat helpful too. He's in the studio right now. You really realize, in those isolated, you know, rock bottom moments, who your real friends are, who's got your back, who just wants you to succeed because they care about you, not because they need something from you. And if you're very lucky, you have a lot of people like that in your life.

Kortney Wilson  20:40  
So I agree. So you're now in 2021

Speaker 1  20:45  
is this? You know, I know a little bit about this time,

Kortney Wilson  20:48  
and I want to hear it in your own words, but would you consider this one of the darkest times in your life? Okay, so, yeah, for sure. Okay, tell us what happened.

Maryam Monsef  20:59  
So we're in a pandemic, and it's probably, I hope it's the worst thing that most of us will ever experience in our lifetimes. And in addition to being at home and working from home and maybe not, maybe, realizing that I don't have some of the healthiest relationships and most positive influences in my life, very, very close to me, the work is harder. People are hurting, people are afraid, and there's uncertainty and fear and things that we thought were going to be there forever suddenly aren't. So it's a tough time to be it's a tough time to lead. It's just tough for so many reasons. And you know, one of the things that's happening behind the scenes, I'm hearing from women in Afghanistan who say there is a peace deal being negotiated, and we're not at the table, but the Taliban are, and they have harmed us, and they will harm us some more. We need to be at the table. We don't even have contact info, contact person to reach out to and say we want to be part of this. So I start having conversations with Afghan diaspora in Canada, in the US, but also with Afghan women in Afghanistan. And it very quickly becomes clear that something really horrible is about to happen. Need to hear these women out. Why,

Kortney Wilson  22:11  
in your words, do you feel we need to hear people out when the naysayers are saying, Hey, you work for Canada. You're here in Canada. You should care about Canadians. So why should we hear people out?

Maryam Monsef  22:26  
Well, the whole reason we went to Afghanistan was because we saw very clearly what happens in Afghanistan affects us in our homes, in our workplaces, on our borders. It was 911 that was the reason we even went to Afghanistan and said, Oh my gosh. What's happening to the women is awful. Let's give you freedom. Let's give you your rights. Let's give you your your education. And for 20 years, the international community did a great job at lifting up women and showing little girls and boys what women could do. And while it wasn't perfect, far from it. Women were rocking it, and those same women were sounding the alarm, and we didn't listen to them. They told us a hasty withdrawal would be catastrophic. We didn't believe them. They told us they want to be part of the negotiations, because the peace agreement would be stronger and better, and research shows when women are involved and when we listen, didn't listen, and what was the outcome. Remember those planes flying with people hanging on and falling from the sky. Remember the images of the Kabul airport with people lining up. I'd have people, young women, particularly calling me at all hours of the night. I don't know how they got my cell phone number. I think a lot of people working in government did at the time get those calls. I remember a young woman called me one night. It was like three or five in the morning, I don't fully recall, and she said, Hey, I'm so and so I was in line waiting to get inside the airport. The Taliban beat me up, so I'm now hiding behind a brown car such and such petrol station. Can somebody come and get me? And my job, like so many others, was to let her know that no one was coming. Yeah, and that is rock bottom. At that point in my career, I realized how little power I had, even though I was the only Afghan in government, I think it was the only Afghan in cabinet. In the g7 I was getting calls from all over the world coming into my constituency office saying, Can you give us direction? Can you give us guidance? And you felt powerless. It's the worst feeling in

Speaker 1  24:40  
the world. Yeah. So this is why, this is why. This is why. So

Maryam Monsef  24:44  
I'm working until like 10 o'clock at night on my day job, and then until 3am I'm working on this, having calls different time zones, all that, and I'm given the green light by the pm to go talk to people the White House, the people at the UN are. Own folks, you know, people in different countries who care about women in Afghanistan, and to come back to them with a solution. And it becomes very clear to me early on that like no one is really prepared for what's about to happen. And you fast forward, you know, several weeks, and I've got two screens open, one of them is showing the president of Afghanistan getting on a plane. And by the way, the proper way to pronounce it is Afghanistan, Afghanistan. Yeah. So we see the president of Afghanistan getting on a plane and leaving, and then we see the Prime Minister of Canada, my Prime Minister, going in and calling an election. And I leave the house that day and I go inside, and I need to film a video that says, election time, make your voice heard. And for the first time in my political experience, no one's smiling at me when they see me inside, no one comes up and, you know, shakes my hand and says, Congratulations. I wish you all the best. You know we've got our support. No one wants this election. People have just been through hell, and that day, I knew in my gut that I'd lost the election. Who are you running against? She's a social media influencer, and she won. And, you know, she's doing a great job in many ways, you know, communicating, which is something I didn't do well. She's a great self promoter, which I encourage all women to do. No one wakes up in the morning and thinks about you except for you. So humble brag.

Kortney Wilson  26:22  
I'm just gonna stop you right now. This is what makes you so freaking cool. Oh, okay, I just asked you, you know about the person that you lost to and the very first thing that you're doing

Maryam Monsef  26:32  
is lifting her up. Let me be clear. She's against childcare. That's not good. But

Kortney Wilson  26:37  
the things that she is doing, well, you immediately focused in on that, which I just have to say, woman to woman is amazing.

Maryam Monsef  26:47  
Yeah. Mean, girls are not gonna help our cause. Don't mess with my childcare is the only reason I have a livelihood. Okay, okay, we'll fight for my childcare, like as you should. Generations of women before me have as you should, Okay, keep going. Okay. So I've lost heart at this point because I've got power, I've got a seat in Parliament, and these folks calling me, these women calling me, they can't count on me. I don't think I'm gonna win this election. And so I just lose heart. And I think a big part of your show is, you know, you can climb any mountain, you can go through anything in life, as long as you believe deep in yourself that I'm gonna get through this. And what's on the other side of this is better that I'm fighting the right fight, that I'm, you know, walking align with my North Star. But the minute you lose that belief, though, and then you go into, what's the point? What am I even doing? Am I still me? Do I even like me anymore? The minute you go into that place you've lost? Is that where you were? Very much. So the day that we were announcing that, you know, whatever safety parameters were in place to allow people to get on planes and to get out. This was the last day that people actually I'm Afghanistan. This is the worst day of all. And remember, like I haven't slept, I'm angry, I'm defeated, and it's lost upon loss. So there's this press conference daily, I think it was almost daily briefing at that time where, you know, I don't have any power over this file. I'm the women's minister. I'm the Rural Economic Development Minister, and my job is to protect Canada's women and to make sure everybody has access to high speed internet. But I'm there because I'm an Afghan and I'm there because it'd be awful for me to not be there. Would be Afghans saying, Where were you? So I'm on this press conference, and I'm thinking about the women who are calling me, the women who are stuck, the little girls and boys, and what's going to happen to this country that the international community has given up so much for. And in that moment, I forget that I'm a politician. I forget that I'm in the middle of a very toxic election campaign that all is so distant from me. I try to speak in a last ditch attempt to the humanity of these terrorists who are holding these women hostage, and I appeal to their humanity in a way that a Muslim would saying like, you know, brother to Sister, you know, we're all part of the same fabric of, you know, humanity. And I try to speak to that, and I say to them like, you know, we ask our brothers to let the women go.

Kortney Wilson  29:36  
They use the word brothers. I read about this, and then

Maryam Monsef  29:38  
it blows up. And it becomes this thing where me, who's been and family members have been victims of these men who's devoted her life to women's rights, suddenly I'm the

Kortney Wilson  29:50  
villain. You are the villain because you use the word MOTHERS doesn't make any sense, and

Maryam Monsef  29:55  
we don't even know how to respond to it. And maybe if I could go back, I would use different words. But here I am trying to save lives. And then that was it. That was you threw your hands up, somebody put up a really awful billboard that then they immediately took down. And I just, I just in that moment, was like, What is the point? So that was rock bottom.

Kortney Wilson  30:19  
Everyone has a weight limit. Everyone and everything has a weight limit. And when you reach yours, you break that was your breaking

Maryam Monsef  30:26  
point. Yeah, and I come from a long line of resilient women like you can be resilient.

Kortney Wilson  30:30  
You can still break them. Run out of you run out of resilience temporarily, hopefully, but you run out of resilience. I for sure. I started this entire podcast with my my moment where I am resilient, I am a powerhouse. I do all of these things, but I had my moment where I was in the backseat of a car and I wasn't sure I wanted to do it anymore. So I understand, do people know about the back seat of the car? You know? I decided that with this podcast, if I was going to have people share their most vulnerable moments with me, I also had to share mine, so I started the podcast with mine, which was, I could never have dreamed that I would it would have ever led me to the back seat of a car where I didn't want to live anymore. But, you know, I'm here to tell my story and my shit stick of life story didn't end there. It was a lesson in resilience. It was a lesson in next chapters. So from, you know, the ashes of whatever that was,

Unknown Speaker  31:31  
catastrophe, catastrophe.

Kortney Wilson  31:36  
How did you rebuild? And what are you doing now?

Maryam Monsef  31:39  
Well, first of all, I'm really glad you're still here, and you've been very courageous to use your personal story to help others feel like they're not alone. I think it's a big reason why you're very successful in what you're doing. So keep it up. Thank you. And like you, I built a business out of the ashes of the disaster that was that last chapter in life, and I was fortunate to be able to do like an Eat, Pray, Love thing where I lost the election, and it was horrible, and it was awful, and then I went away, and I got to stay away, and I didn't talk to anybody for a couple of weeks. And ready to go, I went to Barbados. Oh, love it. Okay. They were so nice to me. And there's a

Kortney Wilson  32:18  
lot you ate your way through Barbados. I

Maryam Monsef  32:20  
swam a lot. I just like, floated in the beaches. I slept a lot because my nervous system was out of whack. And I swim praying not slept forever, yeah, and I spent a lot of time on the prayer mat and on the yoga mat, and I spoke with my therapist and my coach, and, you know, I reevaluated life and realigned. And after I was ready to talk to people, I called 100 people, and these were lovely people who took the time to take my call. And one of them said, Look, your struggles as a leader in government were as big as they were because you didn't have the kind of guidance that could have helped you prevent what was preventable and to protect you from what you could have been protected from. So what if you went in and filled those gaps with leaders who are doing the things you believe in? And Laura gave me this advice, and I'll forever be grateful for her, because that's how onward was born, and that's what I do now, whether it's one on one with CEOs or in small groups of eight or so. You started

Kortney Wilson  33:21  
a company called onward. This is what I do know. And you are a speaker and you advocate, and people can hire you to maybe come into their companies or their corporations. Can they do that as well? Yeah, okay. What else

Maryam Monsef  33:36  
can I do? Team development for teams who are maybe they want to do government relations, maybe they want to tell their story better. Maybe they're trying to retain very talented staff, and I go in and support them with that. Maybe they've got a chunky, troubling issue they want to navigate. I'm there for that, but I get to work with leaders I believe in, and I get to help shape their decisions, and I get to help teach them my mistakes so that they have room to make their own. God, I love that I do too. Yeah, good. Most Joy I've ever had. Real life working and I've had a job since I was 12.

Kortney Wilson  34:13  
You've had a job since you're 12, and you've become a mother. That's all about

Maryam Monsef  34:18  
this job. Okay, how do women do it with more than one and how do women do it with more than one kid? And I have, I have

Kortney Wilson  34:27  
a theory. Okay, so I had my first jet. I was sitting in a car with my then husband, and we he was pumping the gas, and jet was in the back, and he was sleeping, and I turned around and there was a mother with five children in her car. How? And I thought, I'm being serious. She must be crazy to do this five times. But then I realized it was sleep deprivation. Okay, that that helps. So freaking cute, and they're so freaking cute, but amnesia, basically, I think we just absolutely forget, you know, that period of our lives, even though it's beautiful, it's hard, it's

Maryam Monsef  34:59  
hard. Hard, and if you don't have supports, it's unbearable. And so yeah, when I say I'm fighting for child and elder care and for women to have decent jobs that support them, it's because of that, because we lose out so much when we don't support mothers. Well, I have,

Kortney Wilson  35:13  
I have some, I have about 10 questions I want to ask you that are quicker questions. But before I do, I want to ask you how you feel about the climate of the US right now in Canada.

Speaker 1  35:21  
Okay, America, get your bleep buddy. Bleep together.

Maryam Monsef  35:27  
Americans, we love you. You're our closest friends and allies. Canadians have fought with you, died with you, employed you. We've benefited from this long standing arrangement. What's going on? Yeah, did. Let's put this madness to an end. Yeah, it's not gonna help. And actually, the most vulnerable on both sides of our borders are gonna feel the most. Yeah,

Kortney Wilson  35:53  
what a crazy, sad time I was. I was reading the other day. Somebody sent me an article about a bill that was passed, or that is, they're trying to pass my apologies in South Carolina, I think, don't quote me on this making women criminally liable if they have a miscarriage, if they can prove that they are responsible for the miscarriage in Some way, and responsibility would lie like horseback riding, traveling while pregnant, I legit was like, we are living The Handmaid's Tale right now,

Maryam Monsef  36:28  
written by a Canadian, yes, written by a Canadian.

Kortney Wilson  36:31  
Do you want me

Maryam Monsef  36:32  
to comment on that or just, like, cry about it? Because I want to cry. Honestly, there's so many days where I see a version of myself just crying, and I don't have time to be that version, so I just keep pushing through, because this is part of the pushback. Right? Like American women, you are beacons of hope for women everywhere. And what

Kortney Wilson  36:52  
can we do? The people out there, the women out there that you're as far away from politics as possible, don't want to talk about it. What do you have to say that? Say to them right now, what can we do? What are simple things that we can all do if we can't

Maryam Monsef  37:06  
do anything political, because it's just not your thing? Be kind and support those who are start talking about it. Conversations. Talk about it. Just talk about it. That, in itself, is significant. If you have the time write a quick letter or an email to your representative, hey, I support this, or I don't support this, because in my constituency office, if we got a handful of calls about an issue, it became a thing. And then if every representative out there is getting a handful of calls or whatever, you feel

Kortney Wilson  37:36  
discouraged in the US. And I would even say I have felt discouraged because I used to be the letter writer. I would be the person that would, you know, copy and paste the letter for other people to just, you know, to make it easier for them. And it feels for sure, like during this time, that there's a loss of control and in even being heard. And our women of

Maryam Monsef  37:58  
America, the women of Canada are with you. I've seen legislatures like in Manitoba, you know, stand up in solidarity with you. Reach out beyond your borders. There's a reason why you know the world is watching you. You're the most powerful women in the world. You know we are counting on you. So reach out beyond your borders. If you can't write to your representatives, then post something on social media. If you don't want to post on social media, because the trolls are going to come after you. I think we're

Kortney Wilson  38:24  
scared, you know, I think I was having this conversation with somebody the other day. I used to go to the rallies for better gun control, and a few years ago, there was a nine people that died five minutes from our house at a school while my kids were on lockdown. And shortly after that, somebody you know at a gun rally, a car drove in to the rally, and a certain individual decided that this person had just as many rights protesting as the people that were peacefully protesting. And I thought, Oh, my goodness, we're putting our lives in danger. And we just, you know what? What are we doing? How do we? How do we? How do we make a difference when it feels like nobody's listening? I'm not. I'm not dead inside yet. But man, it today, it's it's a tough time right now. So

Maryam Monsef  39:11  
I did a few speaking engagements around Women's Day this year to corporations that have a foothold in Canada and US. And my advice to women in those gatherings and our allies, those who care about us was this, like the women who've come before us, we've got to play the long game. Maybe we're in a point in time when we got to do more to create inclusion and empathy and welcoming and belonging, more of the doing and less of the talking. Maybe we're at a point in our lives and in our history when we gotta recharge our batteries and build our resilience and just take a deep breath and get ready for what's ahead. Because if these tariffs, and you know, the decisions beyond the Canada us piece are. We're gonna stick. We're gonna have a much bigger battle ahead of us than what's in front of us right now. So we charge those batteries. And when I say we don't have time or room for Mean Girls, I mean it, can you

Kortney Wilson  40:13  
be my speed dial? Girl, can you be on my? Girl, okay, good. Yeah, I got you. Okay, I have 10 questions for you, and some of them are easy. This

Maryam Monsef  40:22  
is lightning round. I'm sure lightning round, super easy. Common

Kortney Wilson  40:24  
misconception about

Maryam Monsef  40:26  
politics that is not worth it.

Kortney Wilson  40:29  
Your go to stress reliever. It

Maryam Monsef  40:31  
used to be sleep a

Unknown Speaker  40:33  
child. So throw that out the window.

Maryam Monsef  40:35  
When I feel depressed or discouraged, I bring a group of great women and those who care about us together, and that fills my cup right up. Girls Night, no, like actual events. Let's talk business. Okay? Let's cut from my son. I want

Kortney Wilson  40:50  
to come invited. Okay, if not politics or advocacy or onward, what career would you choose? Teaching, teaching. I know you're gonna say that best piece of advice you've ever received.

Maryam Monsef  41:01  
You get so much advice when you're in government and when you're in leadership, maybe for those who are thinking about running politically, two things. One, whether they love you or hate you, it's not about you, it's about them. You're reminding them of something in themselves, not about you. And two, if you're in a run, which I encourage you to do run a credible campaign, even if you think you have no hope in hell, run a good campaign so that other doors open up for you.

Kortney Wilson  41:27  
One law you wish you could pass instantly.

Maryam Monsef  41:30  
Well, the laws are there. Every woman and child deserves to live free of violence and abuse, but maybe if I could go like this and put a law in place that would give greater teeth to that fundamental human right. That would be it, because if you don't have safety and security, it's gonna be really hard to make the most of your life. Otherwise, love

Kortney Wilson  41:52  
that favorite book or movie.

Maryam Monsef  41:57  
So I have read the alchemist a gajillion times, and I keep going back to it one

Kortney Wilson  42:06  
habit that keeps you grounded.

Maryam Monsef  42:10  
I'm telling you, it's bringing good people together, whether it's for Team social, which we did at the only Cafe a few nights ago, whether it's events at places like the market hall in Peterborough that bring professionals together for you know, the bonding and the heart to heart and the professional development. You also said you do yoga, yeah, not as much as I should,

Kortney Wilson  42:30  
though. Lately, one guilty pleasure, one

Maryam Monsef  42:33  
guilty pleasure. I have so many. Honestly, in Canada, it's CPAC. I know it's different for you. In America, it's a different things. CPAC is the political channel. I was

Speaker 1  42:45  
thinking like Housewives of New Jersey. Okay, not,

Maryam Monsef  42:52  
okay, fine. I watch it because it's fun, but you want to show Think of what let's I just, I just finished watching scandal. Wait,

Kortney Wilson  43:00  
I haven't seen scandal. I love watching. Yes, I actually haven't seen that. Have you seen shrinking? That's the one I just finished watch drinking. If you liked Ted lasso, you'll love shrinking. Shrinking. One piece of advice for your younger self, things

Maryam Monsef  43:16  
that hurt the most are going to be the things that give you the biggest strength in what's coming next.

Kortney Wilson  43:22  
I love love, love that. Because through this podcast, I say everyone gets hit by something. That's where all the good stuff is, that's where the stories are, that's where the lessons are. Yeah, nobody leads the perfect life. And

Maryam Monsef  43:34  
it'd be nice to, like, get a break in between. So, you know, I mean, strong, I would just love sleep and, like, a little bit of boring, a yacht is nice.

Kortney Wilson  43:44  
Okay, number 10, most memorable career moment,

Maryam Monsef  43:47  
the most memorable moment at the beginning of the pandemic, I spent 48 hours not knowing what my job was gonna be. What do we do when you suddenly can't go into the office or talk to people and the technology to have phone calls and, you know, Zoom meetings aren't even really there. And I waited, the team said, Minister, we'll get back back to you that I waited and I didn't get a call back. I got restless, and I picked up the phone, and I called leaders across the country, and I said, What's my job right now? And they all said the same thing, that women and children are going to be trapped with the most dangerous people in their lives, and you better make sure that those centers that can help them have the cleaning supplies and the PPEs and the paid staff to keep their lights on so that they can piece back what was broken. And I those calls then led to me having the courage to say to Prime Minister Trudeau, Prime Minister, not every home is a safe home. At the end of that first cabinet full cabinet meeting when the pandemic was declared, and 48 hours later, he and the finance minister are standing there, in addition to a bunch of other supports, saying, we're going to put forward $50 million so that women's organizations can have the supports they need. That number grew to over $200 million and in that first year of the. Pandemic, million women and children had access to services in their darkest hour, and that's probably my proudest moment.

Kortney Wilson  45:07  
Last and final question, the most important, of course, one song that pumps you up, Maryam, if you suggest like, it's gotta be like

Maryam Monsef  45:18  
anything. Shania Dwayne, okay, I'll take Shannon Nashville. Okay, I'll

Kortney Wilson  45:23  
take Shannon Twain. I was like, expecting some, you know, deep song or something. I was like, no, no, it's got to be something like a no brainer.

Maryam Monsef  45:34  
Okay, recently there's like, call my power back. I love

Kortney Wilson  45:37  
it, the anthem. Oh, wait, that's a new song of hers, yeah? And

Maryam Monsef  45:41  
then there's no, no, that's not shy Twain. That's like they Yeah, all day, every day, you're gonna sing. No, I should not sing. I will lose fans if I sing. Right

Kortney Wilson  45:52  
now, I have a lot of friends who admire Canada and the moves that y'all are making to protect your country, because we also see it as you protecting us. In fact, I would even venture to say that we think you are doing a better job at protecting us than we are within our own country, and you're giving us the support that we need to rise up and support the organizations that care about us. So keep doing what you're doing. Canadian women, please, also, you know, reach out to your fellow Americans, specifically women, because I know people like me are struggling, and you know, my daughter is sitting here in the background and, I fear for her as a woman. I fear for her based on the color of her skin. She had a little friend over the other day, and we were going out to Walmart, and she said, her little friend, who I will not say her name, said, Miss Kortney. I can't go right now because I don't have my passport on me. She was worried because she had been stopped before, and she was worried about going out, and she should be worried about going out right now. She shouldn't be, but she is, because it's a real thing. I love Canada. Canada is where I was born, and it will always be the place of which I call home, despite having lived 2728 years now, in the south. But I do love my fellow Americans too, and I think that's really important. We're all struggling so Maryam Monsef, you are a delight, and I just couldn't be more grateful that you made the trek into Toronto today to have a little chat with me. Thank

Maryam Monsef  47:36  
you, Kortney, it's been a pleasure find

Kortney Wilson  47:38  
new episodes of the shit stick of life podcast every other Thursday, follow and subscribe on Apple podcast Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai