The head of Canada’s immigration and refugee board and a senior border agency official came under fire Monday from Conservative MPs over the failure to deport suspected senior members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from Canada, and for concealing their identities at hearings.
Brett Bush, director-general of immigration and asylum policy at the Canada Border Services Agency, told MPs on the House of Commons immigration committee that, currently, no Iranians connected with the regime can be deported as there are no flights to Iran.
He was asked to explain why only one Iranian official has been deported from Canada, as reported in The Globe and Mail, despite the CBSA having identified nearly 30 suspected senior Iranian officials who are ineligible to remain here. Two others have been issued deportation orders because of their ties to the Iranian regime.
Mr. Bush was asked to clarify how many Iranians with ties to the IRGC are currently in the queue for deportation. He told the committee he did not have that data in front of him.
Conservatives asked whether Iran’s former deputy interior minister, Seyed Salman Samani, who was ordered to be deported in 2024, has been removed from the country. Mr. Bush said he didn’t know.
CBSA has removed only one senior Iranian official from Canada under federal ban
The chairperson of the Immigration and Refugee Board, Manon Brassard, was asked to explain why the identity of a high-ranking Iranian official living in Canada was kept secret at his deportation hearing last month.
“Why is the IRB prioritizing the privacy of an alleged member of a terrorist organization over the safety of Iranian Canadians,” Conservative MP Costas Menegakis asked. “Why hide his name?”
“There are these folks out there that came into the country that should never been allowed here in the first place, that are basically terrorizing the community. And it appears the IRB has taken a position to not disclose their names,” he said.
Ms. Brassard told MPs on the committee that when someone makes a refugee claim under the law, the board must protect their identity.
Conservatives asked Ms. Brassard how many members of the IRGC, which is banned as a terrorist organization in Canada, currently have asylum claims lodged in the system, but she said she did not have the numbers on hand.
She was also asked why the board hadn’t approved the deportation of Afshin Pirnoon, a former director-general of Iran’s roads ministry.
Mr. Pirnoon is reported to have come to Canada on a tourist visa in 2022, and to have been driving for Uber when the CBSA launched deportation proceedings against him.
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The CBSA had alleged the 50-year-old should not be allowed to remain in Canada because he was a “political asset” of the Islamic Republic. But last year, the board allowed him to stay, saying he did not exert significant influence in the regime.
Ms. Brassard explained that the decision on whether someone in his position should be deported “depends on the degree of involvement that official has in the decision-making of their government.”
She faced further questioning about whether any Iranians’ asylum cases had been fast-tracked without a hearing. Ms. Brassard said in the past, some asylum claims from Iran had been adjudicated though a paper-based decision-making process known as file review.
In 2025, there were 11,700 paper-based decisions made at the board, which she said accounted for about 12 per cent of the 78,000 final decisions made.
Conservative MPs asked about safeguards used to ensure that the file review process, which is based on paperwork, does not lead to less scrutiny than at a full hearing. They raised concerns that Iranian regime officials and their families could have used false documents to support their claims for refugee status.
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Mr. Menegakis suggested that family members of Iranian regime members should be deemed inadmissible to Canada.
CBSA’s Mr. Bush was asked if the law should be changed to make it easier to deport Iranians with links to the regime.
“I’ll leave the questions of changing the law to Parliament,” Mr. Bush replied.
Ms. Brassard said there were various levels of safeguards and checks to ensure that people with complex or concerning cases, or those whose files warranted more detailed questions, have a full hearing. She added that the Immigration Minister is informed of files that are on track for a paper-based decision.
She said official documents submitted as part of an asylum claim are closely scrutinized and checked to see if they are authentic, including comparing them to genuine examples kept on file.
Asylum claimants from countries with an 80 per cent or higher approval rate at the Immigration and Refugee Board were more likely to be triaged for a paper-based decision, she said. But she said other criteria relating to individual cases are also taken into account when deciding if an in-person hearing at the tribunal is warranted.