Canada’s Conservative Leader Outlines Strategies Against IRGC Threats

The Canadian opposition leader, running to be the next prime minister, says Iran’s Revolutionary Guards pose the most significant security threat to his country.

Pierre Poilievre, the leader of Canada's Conservative Party, made the remarks on Thursday during a visit to a synagogue in Toronto, outlining his party’s plan for addressing acts of hate crime as well as terrorism and foreign-influence threats.

Dubbing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as the “most sophisticated, well-financed terror group on Planet Earth,” Poilievre said that the group was behind the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, and is an ally of Hezbollah, which has been designated in Canada as a terrorist group.

He also cited a recent report as saying that 700 IRGC agents are operating in Canada “with impunity using stolen money, terrorizing the Persian and Jewish populations and putting Canadians at risk on our soil” as well as being involved in financial malfeasance. A Global News investigation earlier in November claimed it has found evidence that Canada has become a safe haven for affiliates of the Islamic Republic, with 700 people identified already and counting.

“It is time that Justin Trudeau stood up to defend our people against these IRGC murderers and terrorists by banning them today. We should work to kick out every single regime, agent, or terrorist that is operating in this country," Poilievre stated.

He also highlighted the 2020 shooting down of a Ukrainian passenger jet by the IRGC, killing 176 people, including 55 Canadian citizens and 30 permanent residents. Flight PS752 was shot down by two air-defense missiles fired by the IRGC shortly after taking off from Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport on January 8, 2020.

During his speech, Poilievre presented the Conservative Party's five-point "common sense action plan” to protect citizens from hate-driven crimes, with the primary proposal urging the Canadian government to immediately designate the IRGC as a terrorist organization.

Canada’s federal government has referred to the IRGC as a terrorist organization, described its leadership as terrorists, announced measures to make its senior members inadmissible to Canada, and has listed the outfit’s extraterritorial expeditionary division Quds Force as a terrorist entity. However, despite numerous calls from the federal Conservative party, activists and even US lawmakers as well as the families of victims of the Ukrainian flight, the government has refused to designate the whole entity as a terrorist entity under the country’s Criminal Code. In June, Canada's Senate passed a non-binding motion to designate the the Guards as a terror organization, echoing a similar motion in 2018. The country's Liberals supported the Tory motion in the House of Commons back in 2018, but have not done so since.

Additionally, part of Poilievre's plans involves pushing for the establishment of a centralized hub to register information on individuals collaborating with menacing states and disclosing such details to the public. “We need to establish a Foreign Influence Registry... which requires that anyone who works for a foreign dictatorship register, have their names publicized, and exposed.”

The proposed measures reflect a robust stance by the Conservative Party against the perils posed by the IRGC in Canada, with Poilievre asserting the need for decisive actions to safeguard national security and citizens from potential harm.

Earlier in November, Trudeau reiterated that Canada holds “the Iranian regime responsible for the shooting down of PS752, killing of its own citizens and killing of Canadian citizens, and its sponsorship of terror around the world.” So far, Canada has sanctioned 170 Iranian individuals and 192 Iranian entities, including key IRGC and members of the regime’s security, intelligence and economic apparatuses. In 2012, Canada designated Iran as a state supporter of terrorism under the State Immunity Act.