Politics
The federal government is expanding a list of Iranian officials that are inadmissible to Canada. It is not clear how many senior officials would be impacted by the expanded measures
Government first introduced special immigration measures in November of 2022CBC News
· Posted: Sep 15, 2024 2:43 PM EDT | Last Updated: 41 minutes ago
A protester holds a picture of Mahsa Amini during a rally demanding justice for the passengers of Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 in Ottawa on Jan. 8, marking three years since 176 people were killed on board the flight shortly after takeoff from Tehran. (Spencer Colby/The Canadian Press)The federal government is expanding a list of Iranian officials that are inadmissible to Canada.
Ottawa first introduced measures under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) in November 2022 that barred a number of senior Iranian officials from entering Canada.
Those measures applied to people who were senior members of the Iranian government from November 2019 onward.
But the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) announced Sunday that its pushing that date back to June 23, 2003.
“This amended date reflects the day when the Iranian regime arbitrarily detained, and subsequently tortured and killed, Iranian-Canadian photo-journalist Zahra Kazemi while in custody,” a press release from the CBSA said.
It is not clear how many senior officials would be impacted by the expanded measures.
Beyond being barred from entering Canada, officials subject to the IRPA measures could be stripped of temporary or permanent resident status, the press release said.
Last year, the CBSA said it denied entry to dozens of senior Iranian regime officials. It has been investigating about 100 people with status in Canada for potential ties to Tehran since the measures came into force.
The sighting of a former Tehran police chief at a Toronto-area gym in 2021 led many Iranian-Canadians to claim that Canada serves as a haven for high-ranking members of Iran’s regime.
In June, the government designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization under Canada’s Criminal Code after years of mounting pressure from advocates and opposition parties.
