The change began in Dartmouth, New York, on Tuesday, where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his government would take tougher measures against members of the Iranian regime, “including making sure we’re going after them for any assets or homes they have in Canada . “ Back in Ottawa, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland and Transport Minister Omar Alghabra attended a rally marking one thousand days since the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) shot down Flight PS752, killing 55 Canadians and 30 other permanent residents. Then on Friday, the government announced an entry ban on thousands of IRGC members, though it fell short of the full terrorist listing activists sought. The new approach was negotiated on the government’s social media channels, but the Conservatives continued to press Iran hard and tweet their exchanges with the government. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre stands to challenge the government in the House of Commons on Wednesday, September 21, 2022. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press) Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre’s full embrace of Iran’s insurgency has won him praise in the Iranian community. Poilievre personally attended and spoke at both Tuesday’s Ottawa rally and a weekend march in Richmond Hill, Ont., that drew about 50,000 people. Trudeau, on the other hand, has been criticized on Iranian social media for not appearing at Iran-related events while finding time to go bungee-jumping in the hills of Gatineau. The Toronto Star criticized the Trudeau government, calling it “weak” and “out of touch” with Iran.
“The message came loud and clear”
“The last few days I think [the federal Liberals] they’ve realized that the facts on the ground have changed, and also I think they’ve seen backlash from Iranian Canadians,” said Kaveh Shahrooz, a lawyer who organized the march in Toronto. “The process of working with the government is to keep pushing and eventually they give in to your demands.” Shahrooz told the CBC he knows the change in direction may be due to Poilievre’s inroads with Iranian voters. “I think that’s actually a very good thing, and that’s how democracy should work,” he said. “If one party doesn’t respond to your requests, another party comes in and speaks to your needs. And the argument I’ve tried to make in my own community, and I hope every other community follows suit, is ‘Don’t’ Don’t politicians to take your vote for granted.” “If a politician ignores your demands, consider what the other party is offering. And I think the message was sent loud and clear in the Liberal Party this week.” But Shahrooz also said he considered Friday’s announcement of new sanctions against the IRGC misleading. “I started to feel very happy when I first heard the word ‘terrorism,’” he said. “But upon further thought, once I analyzed the words a bit more, I have to say I was a bit moved. “The messages from the prime minister and the deputy prime minister seemed to suggest a terror list, when in fact that’s not what’s being delivered. And I think once the community wakes up to that, some tough questions will be asked.” Protesters in Vancouver are calling for an end to Iran’s mandatory hijab law and accusing its morality police of the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in custody. (Janella Hamilton/CBC) The announcement suggests the Trudeau government has recognized what the Star called the “political risk” of alienating a large and successful community clustered in Toronto suburbs like Richmond Hill — where Liberal MP Majid Johari is already seen by some as the Iranian-Canadian community as too close to the Islamic Republic regime. Jowhari appeared at the rally for the families of the victims of Flight PS752 on Parliament Hill on Tuesday, but organizers prevented him from speaking. The government’s perceived inaction over the downing of a civilian plane full of people with ties to Canada has cost it the support of the Iranian community, which has rallied around people like Shahin Moghaddam, who lost his wife Shakiba and their son Rosstin. Moghaddam told CBC News that the federal government has blocked efforts to enforce an Ontario Superior Court ruling that concluded the attack was an act of terrorism by the IRGC and awarded $107 million to family members. “I have judgments against the chief and five governors from the Ontario Superior Court, but how do I enforce them?” asked.
RCMP accused of inaction
Moghaddam said he also blames the government for the RCMP’s decision not to launch a criminal investigation into the killings. Instead, the RCMP says it is assisting a Ukrainian investigation (the plane belonged to a Ukrainian carrier). “The last three years have been just talk and no concrete action,” he told CBC News. “They blacklisted Russian leaders, but nothing against Iranian leaders or the IRGC.” And he echoed others in the community who say the administration has allowed Tehran to take advantage of Canada. “Canada is a haven for those with ties to the Iranian regime,” Moghaddam said. “They use it for money laundering. People come on visitor visas and spend millions of dollars and no one asks questions.” Moghaddam and others say they want the Trudeau government to develop stronger legal tools against the IRGC, including Magnitsky sanctions and terrorist lists. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited Shaheen Mogadam, who lost his wife and son on flight PS752, in January 2020. Since then, the Toronto man said, the government has done little to seek justice. (Submitted by Jalal Mortazavi) The administration has done a poor job of explaining its reluctance to designate the entire IRGC as a terrorist entity, said Thomas Juneau, who specializes in Middle East politics at the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. “The government has not been completely transparent in explaining why it did certain things and why it didn’t do certain things,” he told CBC News. “And I don’t think there’s any good reason for this lack of transparency. “In an ideal world, the government would provide written reports to Parliament where they would not only list their sanctions, but provide some detail on their implementation.” Some things should remain unsaid for reasons of privacy or national security, Juneau said, “but in a healthy democracy, there’s a lot that could be said.” Some of it, he admitted, might be “politically embarrassing.”
It’s hard to identify the real bad actors
If the administration chose to be honest, Juneau said, it would have to explain that it lacks the technical capacity to impose the kind of sweeping sanctions that would be needed to cover the IRGC — a group that “has hundreds of thousands of members over the past 43 years”. Canada has already listed the IRGC’s Qods Force overseas mission, which fought in Syria, as a terrorist organization. But the IRGC also has its own ground, air and sea forces that operate alongside Iran’s Artesh, regular army, navy and air force. Thousands of ordinary young people have been called into these forces over the years, without the option to say no. WARNING: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announces new measures against the Iranian regime
Canada pursues the IRGC as a terrorist organization
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announces that Canada will pursue the IRGC as a terrorist organization. The United States’ blanket designation of the IRGC as a terrorist entity, which makes no distinction between conscripts and volunteers, has led to family separation. US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has acknowledged that he had little influence on the IRGC’s senior leadership. “The real bad guys have no intention of traveling here anyway,” he told the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee in April.
Canadian sanctions were lightly imposed
But the situation in Canada may be different. The Iranian community here argues that the real “bad guys” are already entering the country, and even buying real estate. Juno said Canada should look for “senior officials who have permanent residence in Canada, or who visit Canada, or have assets in Canada, or are involved in money laundering in Canada, or … who are pressuring members of the Iranian diaspora to try to stop the defense of human rights”. “This is a big problem, and we have a much better chance of addressing this problem with targeted sanctions than through a sweeping sanction that we have little real chance of imposing,” he said. “Sanctions are a tool the government uses to appease domestic constituencies, to try to send a message that we are ‘doing something’ without fully doing it. “Canada already has a reputation for being very lax in terms of implementing – not our statement, but our implementing – sanctions against Russia and others that we’ve imposed over the years.” Friday’s announcement of an additional $76 million to implement the sanctions was hailed by experts as a sign that the government is finally getting serious about giving them real teeth. “In theory, Friday’s announcement includes useful tools to try to address these activities. In practice, the proof will be in the pudding,” Juneau said. Former Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) officer Jessica Davis welcomed the new resources. “This is long overdue. Financial crime in Canada has been underfunded for decades,” he said. “There are huge questions about how Canada, or even if Canada, is enforcing its sanctions.” He said targeted sanctions may well be more effective than a sweeping terrorist listing, but questioned how the administration proposed to carry out its promise to ban 10,000 Iranian officials. “I would be very…
