During a televised interview on December 16, Melanie Joly, Canada’s Global Affairs minister, did not rule out designating Iran’s IRGC as a terrorist organization.
A month ago, Prime Minister Trudeau would not even entertain the possibility of designating IRGC. Joly’s comments thus signal a shift in Canada’s attitude towards the Islamic Republic of Iran and its revolutionary praetorian guard, the IRGC. In fact, one may argue that Canada’s shift has come too late for many. At least since the summer of 2020, when it became abundantly clear that the IRGC had shot down the PS752 Ukrainian passenger airliner with 63 Canadians on board and almost a dozen more Canadian permanent residents, many Iranian Canadians have been demanding such a designation. There are other concrete signs that point to such a possibility. Last week, Canada declared that several former Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) officials were scheduled for deportation hearings. A fortnight before Joly’s interview, dozens of Iranian regime officials were denied entry to Canada.
Since 1990s, the Iranian regime has been building a solid network of patronage in Canada. The Tehran regime has vied for, and won, the patronage of various “Islamic” institutions in major Canadian cities, whilst current and former regime’s senior officials’ relatives, not to mention a former high ranking police chief, have been finding a home away from home in Canada in the same period.
Canada is now on board with other countries in actively dismantling Iran’s network and sending away officials and relatives. The universal backlash against the IRI network sometimes cloaked as “religious centers” seems to be gathering momentum indeed. Only recently did the German federal police raid the Imam Ali Islamic center in Hamburg as well as a dozen more such institution across Germany.
The Iranian Canadian victims of IRI have long engaged successive Canadian governments to dismantle the regime’s unofficial business and family network of present and former regime officials and after over a decade of constant pressure their activism seems to be bearing some fruit.
Historically, Canada-IRI relations have never been on good terms. During the 1979-80 US embassy hostage crisis in Tehran, the Canadian embassy participated in a CIA operation to help smuggle some of the diplomats that had escaped the hostage takers unnoticed, as depicted in Argo, resulting in the embassy’s closure until 1988. Significantly, even though Canada closed its embassy in the aftermath of the operation, the Iranian regime kept its embassy open, so did the Iranian National Petroleum Company continue to have its office open in Calgary, Alberta. From 1988 to 2012, Canada’s stance towards Iran was dubbed by Canadian diplomatic chiefs as “Controlled Engagement.” In this period, over 200,000 Iranians migrated to Canada; a majority of whom through point-based immigration system, business, and study visas.
In 2012, Harper’s government officially ended Canada’s “controlled engagement” with IRI by cutting ties and closing the embassy in Tehran. This time, however, the IRI closed its embassy in Ottawa as well. A combination of factors, from the IRI’s security forces’ extrajudicial killing of the Iranian Canadian Zahra Kazemi to IRI’s crackdown of protesters during 2009 post-presidential elections rising, and the regime’s intransigence during the nuclear negotiations, have been cited as the reasons behind the Harper government’s decision to cut ties with Iran. Yet, Harper’s cutting ties with Tehran did not disrupt the continued migration of many regime officials and their relatives to Canada. In fact, the closure of embassies and Harper government’s designation of IRGC’s Quds Force as a terrorist entity did not disrupt the expansion of the regime’s network in Canada.
As of January 2020, ever more united in their demands for the removal of regime’s network from Canada, several individual relatives of PS752 victims and PS752 association of families launched public awareness campaigns about IRGC and IRI’s network in Canada. In fact, some of the victims’ families have successfully taken the Iranian regime to Canadian courts. Despite all these efforts, it was Tehran’s brutal crackdown of autumn 2022 nationwide protests in the aftermath of the extrajudicial killing of Mahsa Jina Amini that consolidated the Iranian Canadian community’s pressure on Trudeau’s government to introduce concrete measures against the IRI. Thus, on 7 October 2022, PM Trudeau’s office announced its intention to take measures against the Tehran regime, which were followed by November 2022 designation of IRI as a regime engaged in “terrorism and systematic and gross human rights violations”. The events of the past year have undoubtedly led to a flourishing of Iranian Canadian civil society organization intent upon of the removal the Iranian regime’s network from Canada. Another thorny subject has been the designation of the IRGC as a terrorist entity.
Iran’s Religious Patronage Network in Canada
Two publicly reported cases shed light on how aware the Canadian government has been of the IRI’s influence network in Canada. The first one is the case of the Canadian chapter of Ahla’al Bayt World Assembly (AABAW) that was brought to the public’s attention in February 2019. Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, established AABAW in Tehran in 1990. The institution became a global nexus to spread an Iranian government endorsed view of Shia Islam with various chapters across many western liberal democracies including Canada. AABAW’s express purpose is promoting unity amongst the Shia community whilst spreading an unblemished and apologist version of IRI’s view of Shia Islam. Matters between Canada and AABAW came to a head when in 2019 Canada Revenue Agency held the Canadian chapter of this entity to account by revoking its charity status accusing it of spreading the Iranian regime’s official ideology.
Unsurprisingly, the spotting of a man implicated in police brutality and human rights violations caused an outcry in the Iranian Canadian community and led to Trudeau’s government banning Talaei from ever returning to Canada.
The Henareh Family Network and the Case of IRI Money Laundering Networks
Between January and April 2023, Trudeau’s government commenced extensive public consultations with various stakeholders to address the IRI’s oligarchs’, and their relatives’, abuse of Canada’s financial network. Rt. Hon. Chrystia Freeland and her assistants met several times with various groups of Iranian Canadians from diverse professional fields.
The tête-à-tête with the ministers’ assistants established that even before the consultations began, the government was fully apprised of the minutiae of the regime’s activities and watchful of their many operations. The two groups, government officials and community activists, explored financial intelligence and legislative tools through which Canada could tackle the Iranian regime’s complex network. The consultation revealed how the regime’s network in Canada takes advantage of non-profit charities, private enterprises, and foreign currency exchange businesses in major Canadian cities. Iranian-owned currency exchange businesses notably stood out as one of many instruments to subvert the ability of the Canadian government’s financial intelligence network to track down the extra-legal activities of the regime officials and their dependents in Canada.
The consultation revealed how the regime’s network in Canada takes advantage of non-profit charities, private enterprises, and foreign currency exchanges in major Canadian cities. Foreign currencies notably stood out as one of many instruments to subvert the ability of the Canadian government’s financial intelligence network to track down the extra-legal activities of the regime officials and their dependents in Canada.
The consultations further shed light on one specific US federal prosecution of Iranian Canadians, namely Salim Henareh of the Greater Toronto Area and his brother Khalil, with links to the Iranian regime. The Henareh brothers of Toronto are currently being prosecuted for helping the IRI circumvent US sanctions. In fact, as of October 2023, court documents show that the IRI’s influence network has even been able to know about RCMPs’ secret operation about Henareh’s international money laundering activities, and network, by getting tips from former RCMP officer Cameron Ortis. Henareh is a name all too familiar to both Canadian and US intelligence, one might add. In 2013, Manhattan Federal District Court convicted Siavosh Henareh, who operated out of Romania, on charges of trafficking heroine to the US with the purpose of funneling the proceeds to the Lebanese Hezbollah, the armed proxy of the Tehran regime. Ten years later, Siavosh Henareh is still testing every available legal venue to win back his freedom whilst Khalil and Salim Henareh’s fate is yet to be determined by the US federal court in LA, California.
The long tale of dismantling IRI’s complex network in Canada will not end with a series of deportations or the closure of one “religious charity” or another questionable business enterprise. Canada has allowed thousands of those with affiliations of various degrees to migrate to Canada and set themselves up across multitude sectors. These individuals often appear to have very “peaceful” and “peaceable intentions” and are deserving of the presumption of innocence per Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedom.
However, there are still those who simply do their “bit” for a regime that is accountable to no one and is accused of killing Canadians with impunity. The threat that such individuals and entities pose against other Canadians on Canada’s soil can also not be exaggerated. Last year’s nationwide protests in Iran revealed that these pro-Islamic Republic individuals have no compunction in acting on the regime’s behalf to even silence the voice of dissent in Canada. In November 2022, Canada’s Security and Intelligence Services reported that pro-Iranian regime individuals had already made credible death threats against anti-regime Iranian Canadians.
Thus, the overall security of Canada, from the security of its citizens to the security of its financial sector, is at stake. Canada should also ensure that it does not become a haven for the commission of financial crimes. Whilst everyone welcomes the deportation of those implicated with a regime accused of human rights violations and crimes against humanity, the whole country is watching if these actions are followed through a surgical investigation of the many institutions of questionable provenance.
In the end, in contemporary polarized domestic politics every single vote can make or unmake a government. Whether Trudeau’s minority liberal government outlasts 2024 into a spring election in 2025 or not, its actions between now and then against the Iranian regime’s network in Canada will echo at the ballot box along with many other socio-economic factors. And even if the liberals lose the next election, any current member of Trudeau’s cabinet who wish to count on the Iranian Canadian vote may wish to see through dismantling the Iranian regime’s network in Canada. To designate or not to designate IRGC a terrorist entity is a political dilemma like any other and as such the considerations of the ballot box may afford it one way or the other the most unerring response.