Ottawa to brand Iranian guard as terrorists

Liberals agree to designation after years of lobbying

- STEPHANIE LEVITZ

OTTAWA For years, victims of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps demanded the powerful and deadly security force be listed as a terrorist organization under Canada’s Criminal Code.

It wasn’t just them asking. A bipartisan group of American lawmakers had also urged Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government to do it.

Opposition parties did too, and then last month the House of Commons voted in favour of a motion calling for exactly that. For the second time.

Then on Wednesday, the Liberal government agreed, declaring the IRGC will now be considered a terrorist entity under the Criminal Code, meaning police can now charge people who materially or financially support it and banks must freeze their assets.

The move comes as the war between Israel and Hamas appears on the cusp of engulfing more of the Middle East, in part because of Iran’s role in supporting groups like Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and militants in Syria.

Last week, a meeting of G7 leaders concluded with a statement containing a fresh round of condemnation of Iran’s human rights violations, unjust and arbitrary detentions and harassment of its citizens, and that called for the regime to cease its “malicious and destabilizing” actions in the Middle East.

In Canada directly, the IRGC has been accused of foreign interference, seeking to threaten and intimidate members of the Iranian diaspora and of wanting to carry out cyberattacks against the country.

The IRGC was also responsible for shooting down Flight PS752 over Tehran, killing 176 passengers on board, including people with strong ties to Canada.