PM adds more sanctions against Iran, stops short of terrorist designation
Penalties target regime leaders and guard corps
The Canadian government says it will permanently ban leaders of Iran’s theocratic regime and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for human rights abuses, but stopped short of designating the military branch of Iran’s armed forces a terrorist entity.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced new economic and immigration sanctions, more money for enforcement and more targeted individual sanctions. He said Canada will list the Iranian regime under a provision of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, a move he said will target more than half of the IRGC leadership, by designating “more than 10,000 officers and senior members” permanently inadmissible to Canada.
There were few details about how exactly the measures would work, with Trudeau promising ministers next week would outline how the new immigration steps would be “fully effective in going after the right people, either in Iran or in Canada.”
He portrayed it as a rarelyused measure “that’s only been used in the most serious circumstances against regimes conducting war crimes or genocide, like in Bosnia and Rwanda.”
“The Iranian regime is a state sponsor of terrorism. It is repressive, theocratic and misogynist. The IRGC leadership are terrorists. The IRGC is a terrorist organization,” said Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, saying anyone listed under the immigration act “will be sanctioned and prohibited from doing business or hiding their assets here.”
Pressure on the government to formally label the IRGC a terrorist entity had mounted for days from Conservatives, families of Canadian victims killed when Iran shot down Fight PS752 and now in the face of a global uproar over the death of a young Iranian woman who wasn’t wearing a hijab.
Trudeau said the government looked “closely” at designating the IRGC — a branch of Iran’s armed forces and a state actor — as a terrorist entity under the criminal code but decided against doing so, though he was vague about the precise reason. He said only he hasn’t taken any options off the table.
“This is the strongest measure we have to go after states and state entities. The Canadian criminal code is not the best tool to go after states or state entities, but we will continue to look at all tools we can use to do it.”
Trudeau claimed the latest moves are “some of the toughest measures on Iran of any country in the world” and is what “the community wants.”
In addition, the Liberal government will “massively expand” sanctions against Iran under the Special Economic Measures Act, and spend another $76 million to beef up the ability of Global Affairs and the RCMP to fight money laundering and illicit financial activity — a step experts said Friday was crucial.
Freeland said Canada will also cite more individuals under the Magnitsky Act which will target the assets of those directly responsible for human rights abuses.
“All these sanctions and all the designations are really just words until you have an enforcement capability,” said Jessica Davis, a former analyst with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and an expert in counterterrorism money-laundering. “So for me, seeing the $76 million dedicated to some sort of improvement of our sanctions regime is what we’re looking for. I think it’s hard to say whether or not that’s going to be sufficient.”
Davis said Canada has room to do “even more sweeping sanctions against more Iranian regime officials.” And she said more public transparency on the impact of the sanctions is important. It would allow victims to figure out how to go after Iranian-held assets as compensation for crimes committed against them, but also provide greater public accountability. The RCMP has begun to report on the impact of Canada’s Russian sanctions.
“We need to see that for the Iran sanctions as well,” she added.
Thomas Juneau, a former policy analyst at the federal defence department now with the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, welcomed the government’s “intentions” to take concrete actions, but said it has not yet worked out a lot of the details.
“What if some of these individuals are in Canada? What happens to them? And as of now, I’m not clear on what the answer to that is, because that can be really complicated.”
The Star reported Wednesday the government was loath to label Iran’s IRGC a terrorist group over concerns such an action would be overbroad, difficult to enforce and unfairly target potentially thousands of Iranians in Canada who may have been conscripted by Iran’s military.
Freeland said she intends to establish a beneficial ownership registry to track the true foreign owners of assets held in Canada, but that it still requires provincial co-operation. The federal government has promised to set it up by the end of 2023.
Canada listed Iran as a state supporter of terrorism under the State Immunity Act in 2012. A formal designation of a terrorist group makes it possible to freeze or seize an entity’s property and requires banks and financial institutions to block and report any transactions.
Yet multiple sources said a terrorist listing of the IRGC would have an impact potentially on Iranian-Canadian citizens and permanent residents drafted into military service in Iran who would no longer be able to travel or send money to support family still living there.
In 2012, the previous Conservative government expelled Iranian diplomats, closed Canada’s embassy in Tehran, and listed the IRGC’s Quds Force as a terrorist entity. The Quds Force is the clandestine branch of the IRGC responsible for funding, arming and training extremist operations of external groups like the Taliban, Hezbollah, or Hamas.
Since cutting diplomatic ties, Canada has had to rely on proxies like Italy and Switzerland to aid in consular emergencies, such as when Concordia University professor Homa Hoodfar was imprisoned.
The U.S. under former president Donald Trump listed the IRGC as a terrorist entity in 2019 after accusing Iran of continuing nuclear weapons development. President Joe Biden has retained that designation.
In 2018, MPs unanimously supported a motion urging Canada to do just that.