Border agency cited crackdowns on protesters as minister considered blacklist for Iranian officials

The Canada Border Services Agency cited examples of Iran's use of violence against civilians since 2019 to convince the federal government to ban top Iranian officials recently in power from entering Canada.

CBC News obtained from the agency a list of evidence it recently provided to Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino as he considered taking action against Iran in response to its recent violent crackdown on protests.

The list shows the CBSA pointed to Iran's cyberattacks on Albania's government, its plot to abduct or kill Israeli tourists and the death of 23-year-old Mahsa Amini. Her death in the custody of Iran's so-called "morality police" triggered the recent wave of protests.

The agency also cited threats against the families of Flight PS752 victims as examples of Tehran's behaviour.

The federal government has been under intense pressure from Iranian-Canadians and the Conservative opposition to get tough on Iran.

Mendicino officially listed the Islamic Republic of Iran on Nov. 14 as a regime engaged in terrorism and systemic human rights violations.

"This means that tens of thousands of senior members of the Iranian regime, including many members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, are now inadmissible to Canada," said the official government notice.

The designation stopped short of what many in the Iranian-Canadian diaspora have demanded and the United States has already delivered — a federal order listing the entire Islamic Republic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist group under the Criminal Code.

Federal officials said the government doesn't want to target Iranians who were merely conscripted into the IRGC and is instead taking a more targeted approach through the Immigration Refugees Protection Act. The government estimated it could blacklist roughly 10,000 Iranian regime officers and senior members — including IRGC officials in power since November 2019 — from entering Canada.

When asked why the government is only blacklisting Iranian regime members in office since 2019, Mendicino told CBC News he relied on the "extensive analysis that was conducted by CBSA."

"2019 was the time in which there was an uprising, as well as following a number of similar demonstrations in defence of human rights," Mendicino told CBC News.

"Shortly thereafter, of course, there was the downing of Flight PS752, which saw many Canadians and permanent residents as well as foreign nations ... killed as a result of the actions of the Iranian regime."

Iranian-Canadian human rights lawyer and activist Kaveh Shahrooz said the decision to target only those in power since 2019 was "completely arbitrary and defies logic."

"The IRGC has been a terror organization since its inception," said Shahrooz, a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.