Canada's Senate Passes Motion To Designate IRGC

Canada's Senate has passed a non-binding motion to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as a terror organization.

Fierce campaigner Senator Ratna Omidvar who has been leading the charge, stressed that “the crimes of the Islamic regime and the IRGC go beyond the borders of Iran", citing the contribution of the IRGC to Russia's brutal invasion of Ukraine, for which Iran has supplied kamikaze drones.

“They [the IRGC] have been deployed more than 90 times against a civilian population,” added Omidvar --who experienced the turbulence of Iran’s Islamic Revolution while living there before moving to Canada -- highlighting that “Iran and the IRGC fund and support Hamas and Hezbollah, creating significant regional instability".

In June 2018, the Canadian parliament passed another similar motion, introduced by MP Garnet Genuis, to designate the IRGC but the government did not follow up on the action.

So far, Canada has only designated the Quds Force, the extraterritorial arm of the IRGC, but has been reluctant to list the IRGC as a foreign terrorist group.

Canadian officials said last year that the designation would be too much of a “blunt instrument” that could punish innocent people in Canada who were conscripted into the IRGC as part of their mandatory military service.

In November, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada has designated Iran's IRGC leadership, adding that “we will restrict financial transactions with the Islamic Republic of Iran associated with the IRGC and the proxies that support them. These actions are some of the strongest measures anywhere against Iran.”