Feds expand list of Iranian officials barred from entering Canada

The federal government is expanding a list of Iranian officials that are inadmissible to Canada.

Ottawa first introduced measures under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) in November 2022 that barred a number of senior Iranian officials from entering Canada.

Those measures applied to people who were senior members of the Iranian government from November 2019 onward. 

But the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) announced Sunday that its pushing that date back to June 23, 2003.

“This amended date reflects the day when the Iranian regime arbitrarily detained, and subsequently tortured and killed, Iranian-Canadian photo-journalist Zahra Kazemi while in custody,” a press release from the CBSA said.

It is not clear how many senior officials would be impacted by the expanded measures. CBC News has asked the CBSA for clarification.

Beyond being barred from entering Canada, officials subject to the IRPA measures could be stripped of temporary or permanent resident status, the press release said.

Last year, the CBSA said it denied entry to dozens of senior Iranian regime officials. It has been investigating about 100 people with status in Canada for potential ties to Tehran since the measures came into force.

The sighting of a former Tehran police chief at a Toronto-area gym in 2021 led many Iranian-Canadians to claim that Canada serves as a haven for high-ranking members of Iran’s regime.

In June, the government designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization under Canada’s Criminal Code after years of mounting pressure from advocates and opposition parties.