Eshagh Ghalibaf studied at an Australian university and vacationed in Milan, Paris, Amsterdam, Zurich, Dubai and Istanbul before setting his sights on Canada.
He is also the son of a hardline member of the Iranian regime, which has killed thousands of protesters and is now attacking its neighbours with missiles.
Although his father, Iran’s parliamentary speaker, has said the Islamic republic would defend itself “until the last breath,” his son appears to have avoided compulsory military service.
Documents obtained by Global News show that when Eshagh applied to immigrate to Canada he was asked for details of any armed forces duty. He wrote, “none.”
As Iran’s regime suppresses its opposition and targets surrounding Gulf countries in response to the U.S. and Israeli war, its sons and daughters are living more comfortably.
They are in North America and Europe, and include the children of some of the Iranian government’s most outspoken defenders.
That is a sore point among many Iranians, who taunted the regime about it during a protest in Tehran in January, chanting, “Their child is in Canada, our child is in prison,” according to a video of the incident.
High-level government officials have themselves moved overseas, including more than two dozen alleged to have relocated to Canada, some with their children.
The Canada Border Services Agency has been trying to deport them since 2022, with little success. Only one has been removed from the country so far, although others face pending hearings.
Following an appeal by Global News, the Immigration and Refugee Board on Tuesday identified the latest Iranian citizen the CBSA has sent for a deportation hearing for being a suspected “senior member” of the regime, Abbas Omidi.
But activists said it was particularly troubling that regime children were enjoying Western freedoms while Iranians have few rights under the system enforced by their parents.
The son of Iran’s longtime foreign minister Mohammad Jarad Zarif, for example, lives in Manhattan, according to an online petition that calls for his deportation.
The daughter of Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, also lives in the United States, the Guardian reported.
Since the killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khomeini, Larijani has emerged as a key regime figure, and has insisted his government would not surrender.
He recently made headlines for warning the U.S. to “be careful not to get eliminated.” His nephews live in Canada and the United Kingdom, the Guardian further reported.
“The list goes on and on and on,” said Maral Karimi, a professor at Toronto Metropolitan University’s department of politics and public administration.
“It is quite common. I mean, right here in Toronto, where I live, is one of their strongholds. Many Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and other government elite live in Toronto, either themselves or their families, or both.”
An engineer by training, Eshagh Ghalibaf, the 38-year-old son of the speaker of Iran’s parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, has applied to move to Canada twice, records show, and was most recently rejected in 2024.
He did not respond to questions sent by Global News.
His father recently spurned calls for a ceasefire, writing in a social media post that “we believe we must strike the aggressor in the mouth so that it learns a lesson.”
The son’s current whereabouts are not known, but in a court case he filed in Canada as part of his attempt to immigrate, he wrote that he had temporary residence in Australia until 2022.
Documents filed in Federal Court in his case indicate that he applied for a visa to study in Ottawa in 2013 but after it was denied, he enrolled at Melbourne University.
While Iranian men are required to serve two years of military service upon turning 18, the documents on his case indicate he has never done so.
Instead, according to his Canadian immigration file, he visited more than a dozen countries, listing the purpose of his travel as “tourism.”
Banking records he filed in court show payments at sushi and Vietnamese restaurants, car rentals and a Spotify subscription.
In 2019, he applied to immigrate to Canada, and then launched a court case claiming the federal government was taking too long to approve him.
“The delay has a direct impact on many aspects of my life,” he wrote in an affidavit filed in Federal Court as part of his bid to move to Canada.
“I have already said no to two new construction projects in Iran in the last two years in which I was going to take a role as a site manager,” he said.
“This would have provided me with a higher income and a better career path, however, since these opportunities require long-term commitment, as I remain uncertain of when I will finally be granted my PR, I had to turn them down.”
He said he owned two properties in Tehran but had “lost the opportunity of developing” them because of the uncertainty over his Canadian immigration.
“This caused me a huge loss of money,” he said.
He said he had told potential employers in Canada he would be arriving within six months, but continued to wait for his immigration papers.
“Furthermore, I have met a wonderful woman in Iran with whom I feel we can build a life together. However, I am now holding back on taking it further as I do not know where I will end up or when I can come to Canada.
“This puts an enormous psychological burden on my everyday life.”
In its defence, the government said the delay in approving his immigration was the result of the “need to conduct security screening.”
Without mentioning his father, the Federal Court wrote in its 2023 ruling that “very little has happened” in the processing his application.
“This is despite repeated inquiries about the matter from the office of a Member of Parliament, Pierre Poilievre,” the judge wrote.
The file shows that a staff member in the Conservative leader’s Ottawa riding office repeatedly contacted Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada about this case.
Poilievre’s spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
After his attempt to immigrate was reported by Iran International, activists launched a petition calling on Ottawa to block him from Canada.
In a Feb. 21, 2024 social media post, then-immigration minister Marc Miller said the government had refused his permanent residency application.
Another online petition launched in January 2026 demanded that Australian border authorities expel him. It has gathered more than 125,000 signatures on the site change.org.
The organizer of the campaign could not be reached for comment, but the petition called him the embodiment of “stark inequality and injustice.”
“While the common people of Iran suffer under a cruel regime, these privileged families bask in safety, far removed from the consequences of their actions,” it said.
Deporting him was about “not just about removing one individual, but about sending a strong, unequivocal message to the Islamic Republic and its affiliates that hypocrisy and injustice will not be tolerated.”
“We call on Western governments to hold the Islamic Republic’s privileged families accountable for the roles they indirectly play in supporting and upholding a system that brutalizes its own people.
“Safeguarding their lifestyles while ordinary Iranians struggle for freedom is unacceptable.”
