Canada must do more to avoid becoming a refuge for members of the Iranian regime, Canadians of Iranian origin warned in documents released Thursday by the commission on foreign interference.
The documents released by the Hogue Commission summarize public consultations held last year with the Iranian diaspora regarding foreign interference and steps to address it.
In particular, Iranian-Canadians have called for better screening to eliminate regime officials who previously served in the Islamic Republic’s government. arrive in this country.
“Some participants spoke of the presence of Iranian government officials involved in criminal activities and human rights violations in Canada,” the commission wrote.
Community members also told the inquiry that “Iranian-Canadian community organizations have been infiltrated and taken over by people acting on behalf of the Iranian regime.”
Global News revealed this week, despite Ottawa’s promise to expel senior regime officials, the Canada Border Services Agency had expelled only one of the 18 identified so far.
Canada “is known as a refuge for Islamic regime officials and their families,” Tehran-born human rights activist Nazanin Afshin-Jam MacKay said in her presentation.
It was “very traumatic” for Canadians of Iranian origin to see officials of the Islamic regime in Canada, she said, recalling an incident in which “Iranian nuclear officials” were invited to the University of British Columbia.
She described “feeling a sense of despair seeing the children of Iranian regime officials driving luxury cars around Vancouver” and claimed that real estate agents were working with the officials “to park their money” in British Columbia.
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Border agents need more awareness and training, and should use the online public database Faces of Crimes, which documents abuses by regime officials in Iran, she said.
Another witness told the inquiry that a former Iranian police chief was seen in Richmond Hill, Ontario, and that a former Iranian minister “took a summer vacation in Montreal.”
The Iranian regime “wants to exert influence in Canada because there is a large and well-educated Iranian diaspora,” the witness, whose name was not released, told the inquiry.
Another witness suggested creating a section within Canada’s immigration or foreign affairs departments to “examine immigration applications from Iran.”
The Iranian regime is one of several regimes accused by Canada of targeting diaspora dissidents with threats and intimidation.
Recent assassination plots linked to Iran have targeted vocal critics of the mullahs’ regime, including Irwin Cotler, a former liberal MP.
“Iranian dissidents have been threatened in Canada and their families in Iran have been contacted by Iranian officials,” according to the summary of a presentation by Javad Soleimani.
Soleimani’s wife was on board a jetliner shot down by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in 2020. Fifty-five Canadian citizens and 30 permanent residents died in the missile attack.
Three months after the tragedy, Iranian intelligence contacted him and asked him to delete a social media post they did not like, he said.
When he refused, he said they had threatened his family still in Iran.
IRGC members “work and study freely here in Canada,” Soleimani said, adding that Iran “actively promotes its agenda through mosques and community groups” which should be subject to an investigation.
The Canadian government announced in November 2022 that it had banned senior regime officials from the country in response to Tehran’s repression of women’s rights protests.
Since then, a dozen and a half suspected regime members have so far been identified by immigration investigators, but only three deportation hearings have been completed.
Two of them resulted in deportation orders, but only one was actually removed from Canada. In the third case, the Immigration and Refugee Board refused to approve the expulsion.
Meanwhile, an eviction hearing was set to begin next month for Amin Yousefijaman Iranian who helped the Islamic Republic escape sanctions, then changed his name to Ameen Cohen after being convicted.
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