Canadian Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc announced on Wednesday that the nation had designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) a terrorist organization.
The Canadian government advised its citizens to leave Iran immediately because they might be kidnapped in retaliation.
“My message is clear: For those who are in Iran right now, it’s time to come back home. And for those who are planning to go to Iran, don’t go,” said Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly.
LeBlanc said his government acted on “very strong and compelling evidence” when it made the decision to designate the theocratically controlled wing of the Iranian military terrorists.
“The Iranian regime has consistently displayed disregard for human rights, both inside and outside of Iran as well as a willingness to destabilize the international rules-based order,” he said.
“This action sends a strong message that Canada will use all of the tools at its disposal to combat the terrorist entity of the IRGC,” he promised. “Our government will ensure that there is no immunity for Iran’s unlawful actions and its support of terrorism.”
Under Canadian law, police can criminally charge anyone who materially supports a designated terrorist organization and freeze their assets. The terrorist designation will also block thousands of Iranian government officials from entering Canada. LeBlanc hinted that former senior Iranian officials living in Canada could be “investigated and removed,” without naming any of the suspects.
The tough statements from LeBlanc and Joly belied the extreme hesitation of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government to designate the IRGC a terrorist organization.
Trudeau fought to avoid the move every step of the way and only yielded under intense pressure from the Canadian opposition, which has been demanding the action for six years — even before the IRGC shot down a Ukrainian passenger jet carrying 85 Canadian citizens and permanent residents in January 2020.
The Association of Families of Flight PS752 victims said on Wednesday that the families were “happy to hear” that Trudeau’s government finally moved against the IRGC. The Association has demanded the move at every event it held over the past four years.
“It has been a long journey. Long and painful,” said board member Hamed Esmaeilion, whose wife Parisa and nine-year-old daughter Reera were murdered by the IRGC in the shootdown.
“It’s very important to punish those people or those organizations that were involved in atrocities against Canadians and Iranians,” added Esmaeilion, a dual citizen of Iran and Canada who says the Iranian regime has harassed and intimidated his family members in Iran in an effort to silence him.
“Because of the government’s inaction over the last six years, the Iranian regime’s capabilities here in North America have only increased. The government is only taking action now because of recent reports outlining that increased capacity by the Iranian regime,” said Conservative MP and Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs Michael Chong on Wednesday.
LeBlanc shot back that the action against the IRGC was taken after a prolonged, but appropriate, security review. He testily accused the opposition of making unreasonable demands.
“The decision to list an organization under Canada’s Criminal Code as a terrorist entity isn’t made because of comments on Twitter or Question Period,” LeBlanc said. Question Period is the daily session in which Canadian parliamentarians ask questions of senior officials.
The House of Commons voted unanimously on May 8 to add the IRGC to Canada’s list of terrorist organizations, motivated by Iran’s attack on Israel with hundreds of drones and missiles in April.
“Trudeau must finally take action and stand with Iranians in Canada and around the world,” the Conservative Party said after the vote.
In December 2023, a bipartisan group of U.S. congressional representatives sent Trudeau a letter urging him to declare the IRGC a terrorist organization, pointing to Iran’s sponsorship of the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas.
“The October 7, 2023, terrorist massacre by Hamas killed Israeli, American, and Canadian citizens, and it was made possible by Iran and the IRGC, which have supported Canadian-designated Palestinian terror groups such as Hamas with arms, training, and hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for years,” the letter said.
“In the wake of the horrific bloodshed of October 7, a senior IRGC official heralded the gruesome terrorist operation as ‘the greatest success of the Islamic world,’” the U.S. representatives noted.
The Trump administration formally designated the IRGC a foreign terrorist organization in April 2019. Canada added a particular unit of the IRGC, the notorious Quds Force charged with fomenting terrorism and insurrection beyond Iran’s borders, in 2012, which made Trudeau’s critics all the more astonished that he resisted designating the entire IRGC for so long.
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