Canada must do more to avoid becoming a safe haven for members of Iran's regime, Iranian Canadians warned in documents revealed by the foreign interference commission on Thursday.
The documents released by the Hogue Commission summarize public consultations held last year with the Iranian diaspora on foreign interference and what to do about it.
In particular, Iranian Canadians called for better screening to weed out regime officials who served in the Islamic republic's government before coming to this country.
“Some attendees discussed the presence of Iranian government officials who were involved in criminal activity and human rights abuses in Canada,” the commission wrote.
Community members also told the inquiry that “Iranian Canadian community organizations have been infiltrated and taken over by individuals acting on behalf of the Iranian regime.”
Global News revealed this week that despite Ottawa's promise to expel senior regime officials, the Canada Border Services Agency had only deported one of the 18 identified so far.
Canada “is known as a safe haven for officials of the Islamic regime and their families,” Tehran-born human rights activist Nazanin Afshin-Jam MacKay said in her presentation.
It was “very traumatizing” for Iranian Canadians to see Islamic regime officials in Canada, he said, recalling an incident in which “Iranian nuclear officials” were invited to the University of British Columbia.
She described “experiencing feelings of desperation upon seeing the children of Iranian regime officials driving fancy cars around Vancouver” and claimed real estate agents worked with officials “to park their money” in British Columbia.
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Border agents need more awareness and training, and should use the public online database Faces of Crimes, which documents abuses by regime officials in Iran, he said.
Another witness told the inquiry that a former Iranian police chief was seen in Richmond Hill, Ont., and that a former Iranian cabinet 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 revealed, told the inquiry.
Another witness suggested establishing a section within Canada's immigration or foreign affairs departments to “examine immigration applications from Iran.”
The Iranian regime is one of several that Canada has accused of targeting dissidents in the diaspora with threats and intimidation.
Recent assassination plots linked to Iran have targeted outspoken critics of the clerical 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 a summary of a presentation by Javad Soleimani.
Soleimani's wife was aboard a passenger plane shot down by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in 2020. Fifty-five Canadian citizens and 30 permanent residents were killed in the missile attack.
Three months after the tragedy, Iran's intelligence service contacted him and told him to delete a social media post they didn't like, he said.
When he refused, he said they threatened his family who was still in Iran.
IRGC members “work and study freely here in Canada,” Soleimani said, adding that Iran “has been actively promoting its agenda through mosques and community groups” that should be investigated.
The Canadian government announced in November 2022 that it had banned senior regime officials from entering the country in response to Tehran's crackdown on women's rights protests.
Since then, immigration investigators have so far identified a dozen and a half alleged senior members of the regime, but only three deportation hearings have been completed.
Two of them ended up with deportation orders, but only one of them has been removed from Canada. In the third case, the Immigration and Refugee Board refused to approve the deportation.
Meanwhile, a deportation hearing would begin next month for Amin Yousefijam, an Iranian who helped the Islamic Republic evade sanctions and then changed his name to Ameen Cohen after being convicted.
Stewart.Bell@globalnews.ca
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