Canada to list Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as terrorist group after years of pressure
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The federal government is preparing to list Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization under Canada’s Criminal Code after mounting pressure, CBC News has learned.
Multiple sources with knowledge of the talks say an announcement is expected as early as this week. Discussions are still ongoing and details not finalized, they said.
Once a group is placed on the country’s terror list, police can charge anyone who financially or materially supports the group and banks can freeze assets.
The latest development comes after years of pressure including from the Association of Flight PS752 Victims, members of the Iranian Canadian community, the Conservative Party and the NDP to designate the whole militia group as a terrorist entity. MPs unanimously voted last month to do so.
The IRGC is a branch of the Iranian armed forces that answers directly to Iran’s supreme leader. The IRGC shot down Flight PS752 above the skies of Tehran in January 2020, killing 175 passengers, including 55 Canadian citizens and 30 permanent residents.
Ever since then, the victims’ families have loudly campaigned for the government to designate the IRGC as a terrorist organization.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre renewed his calls for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to list the IRGC as a terrorist entity after Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, which killed an estimated 1,200 people, according to Israeli government tallies. Hamas, which is listed as a terrorist organization, is also a member of a Tehran-backed alliance of militant groups in the Middle East known as the “Axis of Resistance.”
After years of reluctance by the government, Trudeau told victims’ families at a ceremony on the fourth anniversary of the destruction of the plane that his government was looking at ways to “responsibly” move forward with that designation.
“We know there is more to do to hold the regime to account and we will continue our work, including continuing to look for ways to responsibly list the IRGC as a terrorist organization,” the prime minister said on Jan. 8.
On the fourth anniversary of the downing of Flight PS752, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Canada will look for ways to hold Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) accountable for the deaths of the 176 passengers, some of whom were Canadians.
That comment came after the government explained for years why it hadn’t done so.
In 2022, the government said that including the militia group on the terrorist list could unfairly hurt Iranians in Canada who opposed the regime and fled, but had to serve with the IRGC in the past as part of mandatory military service. Then-justice minister David Lametti said designating the IRGC as a terrorist entity could be too much of “a blunt instrument.”
Instead, the government opted to take action that year through immigration laws and designate the Islamic Republic of Iran a “regime that has engaged in terrorism and systematic and gross human rights violations” under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA).
The government has also argued it already listed the Quds Force — a branch of the IRGC — as a terrorist organization. But the victims’ families said that wasn’t enough because the Quds Force was not the branch responsible for shooting down Flight PS752.
Hamed Esmaeilion says Canada should “listen to the victims” of the Iranian regime and list the IRGC as a terrorist entity: “It’s about 43 years of crimes…We’ve lost 85 Canadians because of the shooting down of Flight PS752. We’ve lost Zahra Kazemi and Kavous Seyed-Emami.”
Conservative deputy leader Melissa Lantsman on Tuesday questioned why the government could be moving toward the designation now. The Conservatives have demanded this move since 2018, when the House of Commons first adopted a Conservative opposition motion to do so.
“Six years of excuses and they did nothing, but with a byelection on Monday and the prime minister desperately needing to pad his margins, it turns out that there might be enough pressure for them to finally ban the IRGC terrorists that they should have banned years ago before they set up shop here to terrorize our communities,” Lantsman said in the House of Commons.
Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc responded, saying the government has taken measures against Iran’s regime, including under immigration legislation.
“When we have some news, we will be making an announcement appropriately,” LeBlanc said Tuesday.
The NDP has also demanded to know why this terrorism designation hasn’t happened yet, which led to a foreign affairs committee studying it.
At a media conference earlier this week, Iranian Canadian human rights activist Nazanin Afshin-Jam MacKay, speaking for Iran’s Justice Collective, called on the government to act. She said IRGC regime officials and affiliates are living in Canada, buying up expensive properties, and pose a risk.
“For us, it’s extremely important to list them on the terrorist list, not just because of what they do to Iranians but the security risks they pose to all Canadians,” she said at the media conference on Tuesday about an NDP motion targetting Iran.
The Canada Border Services Agency said last year it had denied entry to dozens of senior Iranian regime officials trying to enter Canada and was investigating about 100 more with status in Canada.
The U.S. listed Iran as a terrorist organization in 2019, when Donald Trump was president.
