Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says his government is taking steps to stop high members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) from entering Canada.
Trudeau mentioned the transfer would have an effect on the highest 50 per cent of the IRGC — roughly 10,000 members — and shall be everlasting.
“We are utilizing essentially the most highly effective instruments at our disposal to crack down on this brutal regime,” Trudeau advised a press convention Friday.
The transfer comes after weeks of strain on the government from opposition MPs and advocates to add the IRGC to Canada’s terrorist listing.
What the government introduced falls quick of itemizing the IRGC as a terrorist entity. Instead, the government is utilizing provisions underneath the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) to goal members of the regime and the IRGC.
Members of Parliament handed a movement in 2018 calling on the government to designate the IRGC as a terrorist group. Four years later, it nonetheless hasn’t completed so — though the guard’s paramilitary Quds Force is already on the listing.
The Conservative opposition has been amping up the strain on the government to add the IRGC to the listing in current weeks. Conservative MPs have introduced up the subject up in almost each query interval since Parliament returned final month.
The Association of Families of Flight PS752 Victims additionally has calling on Ottawa to add the IRGC to the listing of terrorist organizations in response to its function in destroying the civilian plane two years in the past.
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland insisted Friday that by taking the steps it has taken, the federal government is recognizing the IRGC as a terrorist entity.
“The IRGC is a terrorist group. Today, by itemizing the IRGC underneath IRPA and certainly by itemizing the broader management of the Iranian regime, we’re formally recognizing that reality and performing accordingly,” she mentioned.
When requested why the government did not truly add the IRGC to the listing of terrorist entities, Trudeau did not rule out doing so sooner or later.
“We have regarded very, very fastidiously in any respect the potential instruments and we’re not taking any additional instruments off the desk,” he mentioned, including that the IRPA was used in opposition to people in Rwanda and Bosnia within the Nineties.
Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino’s workplace mentioned beforehand that including a corporation to the terrorist listing is just not up to politicians.
“Determining whether or not a gaggle constitutes a terrorist entity is a cautious, non-political course of undertaken by Canada’s nationwide safety companies,” spokesperson Alexander Cohen mentioned in an electronic mail to The Canadian Press in September.
“These companies are constantly working to establish and assess entities which will meet the brink for itemizing.”
Earlier this week, the government slapped sanctions on 34 Iranians and Iranian entities, together with members of the IRGC and Iran’s morality police.
Trudeau mentioned Friday the government shall be increasing these sanctions and can allocate $76 million to enhance the RCMP’s capability to seize and freeze the property of sanctioned entities.