‘Safe haven’: Iranian Canadians urge Ottawa to weed out regime officials
Canada must do more to avoid becoming a safe haven for members of Iran’s regime, Iranian Canadians warned in documents unsealed by the foreign interference commission Thursday.
Documents released by the Hogue Commission summarize public consultations held last year with the Iranian diaspora concerning foreign interference and what to do about it.
In particular, Iranian Canadians called for better screening to weed out regime officials who served in the government of the Islamic republic before arriving in this country.
“Certain attendees talked about the presence of Iranian government officials who were involved in criminal activities and human rights abuses in Canada,” the commission wrote.
Community members also told the inquiry that “Iranian Canadian community organizations have been infiltrated and taken over by persons acting on behalf of the Iranian regime.”
Global News revealed this week that despite Ottawa’s promise to expel top regime officials, the Canada Border Services Agency had deported only one of the 18 identified so far.
Canada “is known as a safe haven for Islamic regime officials and their families,” Tehran-born human rights activist Nazanin Afshin-Jam MacKay said in her presentation.
It was “very traumatizing” for Iranian Canadians to see officials from the Islamic regime in Canada, she said, recalling an incident that saw “Iranian nuclear officials” invited to the University of British Columbia.
She described “experiencing feelings of despair upon seeing the children of Iranian regime officials driving fancy cars around Vancouver,” and claimed realtors worked with officials “to park their money” in B.C.
Border agents need more awareness and training, and should use the public online database Faces of Crimes, which documents the abuses of regime officials in Iran, she said.
Another witness told the inquiry a former Iranian police chief was spotted in Richmond Hill, Ont., and a former Iranian cabinet minister “took a summer vacation in Montreal.”
The Iranian regime “wants to exert influence in Canada because there is a large and well-educated Iranian diaspora,” the witness, whose name was not released, told the inquiry.
Another witness suggested establishing a section within Canada’s immigration or foreign affairs departments to “scrutinize immigration applications from Iran.”
The Iranian regime is one of several that Canada has accused of targeting dissidents in the diaspora with threats and intimidation.
Recent assassination plots linked to Iran have targeted outspoken critics of the clerical regime, among them Irwin Cotler, a former Liberal MP.
“Iranian dissidents have been threatened in Canada and that their families in Iran have been contacted by Iranian officials,” according to a summary of a presentation by Javad Soleimani.
Soleimani’s wife was aboard a passenger plane shot down by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) in 2020. Fifty-five Canadian citizens and 30 permanent residents died in the missile attack.
Three months after the tragedy, Iran’s intelligence service contacted him and told him to remove a social media post they did not like, he said.
When he refused, he said they threatened his family still in Iran.
IRGC members “freely work and study here in Canada,” Soleimani said, adding Iran “has been actively promoting its agenda through mosques and community groups” that should be investigated.
The Canadian government announced in November 2022 that it had banned senior regime officials from the country in response to Tehran’s suppression of women’s rights demonstrations.
Since then, a dozen-and-a-half suspected top regime members have so far been identified by immigration enforcement investigators, but only three deportation hearings have been completed.
Two of those ended with deportation orders, but only one of them has actually been removed from Canada. In the third case, the Immigration and Refugee Board refused to approve the deportation.
Meanwhile, a deportation hearing was to begin next month for Amin Yousefijam, an Iranian who helped the Islamic republic dodge sanctions, and then changed his name to Ameen Cohen after he was convicted.