Twenty alleged senior members of the Iranian regime have now been found living in Canada, immigration officials confirmed amid an election debate on how best to deal with the Islamic republic.
The most recent is an Iranian citizen scheduled to go before the Immigration and Refugee Board in June after the Canada Border Services Agency accused him of having served as a top official in Tehran.
The refugee board released his name to Global News on Wednesday but later requested that it not be published because his deportation hearing was being held behind closed doors.
Reached by Global News, a Vancouver-area man by the name declined to comment. According to Iranian media, he was an official in Iran’s oil ministry. The CBSA declined to comment.
He is the latest Iranian citizen flagged for deportation since the Canadian government launched a crackdown in 2022 against alleged high-level regime members residing in the country.
Those identified by immigration enforcement authorities are being sent to the refugee board, which has been holding hearings to decide whether they should be deported.
But the cases have been held largely in secrecy and have moved slowly, with only one successful removal so far, although a few of the Iranian officials have left voluntarily.
“To know that there are people affiliated with the highest echelons of Iran’s regime walking around our streets certainly poses a danger to this country,” said Kaveh Shahrooz, a Toronto lawyer and human rights activist.
“It also poses a danger to the diaspora, many of whom have escaped Iran to live here in safety. And to see the people affiliated with the regime that they escaped from are able to come here and live freely, they certainly feel intimidated by this.”
More than a decade after Canada severed diplomatic ties with the regime, Iran looks likely to remain a key national security and foreign policy challenge for the next government.
Long a source of instability in the Middle East, Iran trains, arms and finances Hamas, Hezbollah, Iraqi Shiite militias and Yemen’s Houthis, and sells attack drones to Russia for the war on Ukraine.
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In Canada, operatives have helped Iran launder money and evade sanctions, and the foreign interference inquiry revealed how the theocracy targets the diaspora in an attempt to stifle dissent.
Last October, the RCMP warned former Liberal MP and justice minister Irwin Cotler, an outspoken critic of Tehran, that he was the target of an Iran-linked assassination plot.
Iran arose during the federal leaders’ debates, with the Conservatives highlighting its responsibility for the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, and Liberals agreeing it was a “fundamental risk.”
But during the final days of an election dominated by the question of how to deal with U.S. President Donald Trump, Global News asked the major political parties how they intended to approach Iran.
See the full party responses here.
The Conservatives responded by promising to “stand with the long-suffering people of Iran” and criticizing the Liberals for being slow to list the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist group.
In a statement, the party said a Pierre Poilievre government would enforce sanctions against Tehran and increase Canadian oil exports to partners and allies in order to reduce international reliance on Iranian oil.
“Conservatives will focus on preventing members of the regime from entering Canada and strengthen efforts to counter money laundering by the regime through Canada’s financial system,” it said.
The Liberals said the previous government had outlawed the Houthis, Revolutionary Guard and Samadoun, and would work with national security agencies to target other terror groups and their supporters.
“The Iranian regime poses a threat to international peace and security, both through its armed forces and through support of its allies and proxies. A new Liberal government led by Mark Carney will work with the international community to deter its destabilizing influence in the region,” a party spokesperson said.
Carney would also “stand firm” in upholding human rights sanctions against Iran, the spokesperson said. “We will use every tool in our toolbox to crack down on this brutal regime and the individuals responsible for its egregious behaviour.”
Meanwhile, the Liberals would hold work to hold Iran accountable for downing a commercial airliner in 2020, killing 176 people, among them 55 Canadian citizens and 30 permanent residents.
Families of the victims will continue to have a pathway to permanent residence, and Canada will keep pressing Iran to provide financial reparations, according to the Liberal spokesperson.
The NDP did not respond.
Regardless of who wins the election, Prof. Thomas Juneau does not foresee a thaw in relations with Iran and believes Carney and Poilievre would likely follow a similar path.
“I don’t expect that there would be major differences between the substance of the Iran policy of a Liberal or a Conservative government,” said Juneau, a professor at the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs.
“The Conservatives have pledged to take a tougher line, but in practice there would be little they could do beyond harsher rhetoric.”
Shahrooz said Iranian Canadians want a government committed to closer interaction with the community and speedier action to remove regime members.
“I’d like greater government action in terms of freezing the assets and identifying the assets that have been stolen from Iran and brought to Canada and parked here,” Shahrooz said.
“And finally, what I’d like to see is greater due diligence happening before someone obtains a visa to come to this country. What I think we need, rather than just a simple policy change, is just a different philosophical approach,” he said.
“We need to be more welcoming of people that have ties to Canada, or people that are human rights defenders that need to come to this country for safety. And we need to shut our doors to those that have ties to the regime.”
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