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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 299

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 15, 2024 11:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 299 - Apr/15/24
Mr. Tom Kmiec (Calgary Shepard, CPC)
  • Apr/15/24 4:34:49 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to make a comment and ask the member a question. The first line of the report calls on the government to designate the group, called Sepâh-e Pâsdârân in Farsi, as a terrorist group. We have been trying to convince the government for six years now to designate it as a terrorist group under the Criminal Code. Some members have asked the question about the people who have been forced to do their military service with this terrorist group. In fact, all those who work for the Quds Force are volunteers. They are soldiers who work for the Government of Tehran. It is a terrorist group that killed Kian Pirfalak, who was nine years old. Those people killed Mahsa Amini. They killed Nika Shahkarami, Sarina Esmailzadeh and Armita Garavand. Thousands of people have been sent to Iranian prisons just for defending their democratic and human rights. Why does my colleague think that the government has been refusing for six years to add this group to our terrorist list in our Criminal Code so that its hundreds of agents, who are here in this country, can face justice?
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Context: House Hansard - 299 - Apr/15/24
Mr. Tom Kmiec (Calgary Shepard, CPC)
  • Apr/15/24 5:08:55 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to commend the member on at least recognizing the fact that there are IRGC agents in Vancouver. I do spend quite a bit of time in the Persian community, but also with Kurds and Baloch, who are also all impacted. Many of them originate from Iran and are chased here by IRGC agents who continue to try to persecute them, whether it is with WhatsApp messages or telegram messages, telling them that their families will be found in Iran if they speak up or join one of the Jin, Jîyan or Azadi, to use the Sorani Kurdish dialect, if they join in Mahabad or Sanandaj or Saqqez. It is a regime that is more than happy to murder people both in Iran and all over the Middle East, then chase people to Europe and Canada and never leave them alone. I want to bring up Kian Pirfalak because there was a tree-planting ceremony in Calgary in the name of this nine-year-old who was murdered by the IRGC. I would like to hear from the member why she thinks it has been six years since Parliament passed a motion calling for the IRGC to be listed as a terrorist organization in our Criminal Code, and the government continues to refuse to do that.
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Context: House Hansard - 299 - Apr/15/24
Mr. Tom Kmiec (Calgary Shepard, CPC)
  • Apr/15/24 5:46:46 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I know the member cares about this particular issue quite a bit. We had a kind of round table on the Hill, what now feels like many months ago, regarding specifically the issue of conscripts in the IRGC, in Sepah-e Pasdaran. The way it works in Iran is that one enters a room where all the conscripts are and people are basically assigned in thirds to whatever service they are going to. I wonder if the member would support an amendment to section 34 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act that would exclude those who had to serve mandatory military service in such an organization so that we can finally list the IRGC as a terrorist organization the way this Parliament demanded the government do six years ago.
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