An Iranian woman lifts a national flag at a pro-government rally in Tajrish square north of Tehran, on October 5, 2022, condemning recent anti-government protests over the death of Mahsa Amini.AFP/via Getty Images
The recent demonstrations in Canada against Iran’s cruel and oppressive regime are about more than just solidarity with the Iranian people.
True, solidarity is part of it: for weeks brave Iranians have taken to the streets following the killing of 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman Mahsa Amini at the hands of Iran’s morality police. Ms. Amini was detained on Sept. 13 for improperly wearing her hijab, and she died in custody three days later, sparking a backlash that has since spread across the entire country. In the ensuing weeks, Iranian women have publicly burned their hijabs and cut their hair in defiance of the regime, protesting in city centres and universities despite widespread internet outages (the same tactic Iranian authorities used to try to quell nationwide protests in 2019) and violence from state security forces trying to control the crowds.
In Canada this past weekend, tens of thousands of people marched in a rally in Richmond Hill, Ont., following Iranians’ steps and adopting their slogans, but armed with the confidence that they would return home safely when the demonstration was done. They marched for justice for Ms. Amini, for women like her, and for freedom for the Iranian people from the country’s thuggish, corrupt and violent regime.
But amid the chants of “say her name” and “free Iran” were calls for action specifically from the Canadian government: for greater sanctions (Canada has already levied many against Iranian government entities and individuals since Ms. Amini’s death), for further condemnation, and for Canada to designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a branch of Iran’s military, as a terrorist entity. Canada currently lists the IRGC’s Qods Force, which is responsible for extraterritorial operations, as a terrorist entity, but not the IRGC in its entirety. This latter call was echoed by the friends and family of those who were killed on Flight PS752, who marked 1,000 days on Tuesday since the plane carrying 55 Canadians and 30 permanent residents was shot down by the IRGC in January, 2020.
The debate over whether Canada should indeed list the IRGC as a terrorist entity has been going on for years. In 2018, Conservative MP Garnett Genuis put forth an opposition motion to “immediately” designate the IRGC a terrorist entity, but despite the motion receiving bipartisan support, no action has been taken in the four years since.
Speaking to the crowd gathered on Parliament Hill this week to mark 1,000 days since the downing of Flight PS752, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said, “We will use all the tools at our disposal to isolate and punish the brutal dictatorship,” adding that “we understand the significance of listing the IRGC [as a terrorist entity]” but did not elaborate on whether her government intends to do so. Last week, Foreign Minister Melanie Joly was asked several times during a CBC News interview why her government has not moved forward with an official designation, though she dodged the question the four consecutive times it was asked. “We will continue to put pressure on the Iranian regime,” she said.
The government may privately have many good reasons for hesitating or declining to act. When the Trump administration listed the IRGC as a terrorist organization in 2019, some military and intelligence experts warned that it could provoke retaliation against U.S. troops stationed in the Middle East, while at the same time serving as a mostly symbolic measure because most dealings with the IRGC were already prohibited by a network of sanctions. Canada may have similar reasons, compounded by the fact that it lacks the economic, military, and strategic heft that the U.S. does in justifying taking such an unprecedented step as listing another country’s military as a terrorist entity. The government may also be wary to make the designation out of concern it will ensnarl Canadian individuals and businesses in (inadvertent) terrorist financing, since the IRGC is entrenched in many areas of the Iranian economy.
At the very least, the Canadian government owes the 50,000 people who marched in Richmond Hill over the weekend – and many more who have been watching with horror as the Iranian regime violently cracks down on protesters – an explanation. The IRGC plays an essential role in training, financing, and carrying out domestic and foreign terrorist activity and functions less as a legitimate parallel military force than the extended muscle of the corrupt Iranian regime, tasked first and foremost with its preservation. Parliament voted to designate the IRGC a terrorist entity, but so far, the government has both declined to act and declined to explain why it has declined to act. Surely the architects of Canada’s “feminist foreign policy” have more to offer than a shrug – or in the case of Ms. Joly, the repetition of a canned non-sequitur. The Iranian diaspora and their allies have asked for specific action; if the Canadian government won’t take it, it must at least explain why.