Maryam Monsef, Matt DeCourcey Get Engaged During Family Celebration

Liberal minister Maryam Monsef kicked off her 35th birthday with some happy news. She announced her engagement Thursday to defeated Liberal MP Matt DeCourcey via social media. 

“I am happy to share that I am engaged to marry my love, Matt DeCourcey ,” she wrote on Facebook and Instagram, where she posted some images.

Monsef wrote that DeCourcey’s family and friends travelled from Fredericton to her Ontario riding of Peterborough-Kawartha to ask her and her family to bless the union. 

“My family and our elders loved him and his. They have blessed the union and we are feeling mighty blessed,” she said.

Monsef fled Afghanistan with her family and arrived in Canada as a refugee in 1996, when she was 11 years old. Her heritage was celebrated at the engagement with Monsef wearing an Afghan dress on the dance floor, and a catered Afghan meal for the gathering. 

The pair were in Ottawa Thursday for a meeting of the Liberal caucus and outgoing MPs, where they shared their personal news, reported CTV.

“We’re very happy,” Monsef said, leaving the two-hour meeting.

DeCourcey, 36, and Monsef were both elected as MPs for the first time in 2015. He sat on the House of Commons Special Committee on Electoral Reform, while she was Democratic Institutions minister. 

DeCourcey lost his Fredericton seat in the election last month to the Green Party’s Jenica Atwin .

Monsef is the Minister for Women and Gender Equality and the Minister of International Development.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this story said it was Monsef’s 34th birthday. It was actually her 35th.