Thank you, Chair and honourable members of Parliament. On behalf of the Iranian Justice Collective, a non-partisan group that echoes the voices of Iranian Canadians and freedom-loving Iranians inside Iran, I thank you for this invitation to speak on this critically important issue for all Canadians: listing the IRGC on the terrorist list under the Canadian Criminal Code.

As we all know, the House of Commons unanimously has voted to have the IRGC proscribed twice now—once six years ago and again just a few weeks ago today. Today I'll dispel myths about the IRGC and speak to the nature of this repressive force domestically and internationally, and I hope to table some policy recommendations from our team to support making this a reality.

First, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is not equivalent to the Iranian army. They are two separate forces. The duty of the army, like any army, is to protect Iran's borders, sovereignty and people. After the Islamic revolution in 1979, a paranoid Ayatollah Khomeini, the supreme leader, created the IRGC as a counterweight to the army in case of a coup d’état, and to specifically protect his Islamic regime and defend it against any threats internally or externally—in other words, to suppress anyone who got in the way of his power and expansion of extremist jihadist Islamist ideology.

The IRGC's role increasingly became more powerful in foreign policy, and it now controls over 30% of the economy. One can equate it to a large, corrupt mafia group comprising 150,000 members involved in money laundering, transnational terror, selling drugs on the black market, expropriation of property, extrajudicial killings, targeted assassinations, cyberwarfare and the spread of Islamist propaganda. Being economically enmeshed with large industries—including manufacturing, shipping and banking—finances its activities, weapons acquisitions, covert operations and nuclear program.

Internally they exist to quell all internal dissent. Any time you have seen video footage of women in Iran being beaten and dragged screaming into police vans because of not properly wearing a hijab or of Christians arrested for worshipping in underground churches or Kurds being gassed or children being executed or peaceful protesters being intentionally shot at, blinded, raped or tortured, these are all the acts of the IRGC and its paramilitary subgroup, the Basij. My own father was tortured and almost executed at their hands.

There are no proper trials in Iran because there is no rule of law. Judges are allowed to mete out rulings based on ordained knowledge coming from God—sham trials lasting five minutes with no proper legal representation—resulting in thousands of innocent political prisoners being executed, and even the journalists reporting on the matters or lawyers representing them are jailed. Iran has the highest number of executions worldwide per capita, with 800 people hanged last year alone. The United Nations fact-finding mission report on Iran concluded that the violations of human rights amounted to crimes against humanity. This gender-apartheid regime and the IRGC have no regard for human life.

Outside of Iran, the IRGC uses other terrorist groups in the axis of resistance as their proxies to carry out terror and to expand their extremist anti-west, anti-Israeli ideology. Iran is the biggest state sponsor of terrorism, responsible for allocating billions of dollars to fund and train Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and other terrorist factions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, not to mention helping Assad's regime in Syria, which killed half a million people.

They continue to foster ties with other authoritarian regimes like Russia, providing them with drone-launched glide bombs used against innocent Ukrainians. I just had lunch today with the Nobel peace laureate from Ukraine, and she expressed this concern on behalf of the Ukrainian community as well.

Please note that the regime is continuing with nuclear proliferation, with uranium enrichment at 65%, which will be an existential threat to not only Jews but to our whole western civilization and way of life. If we do not do something now, their terror will spread like cancer and cost us even more—politically through foreign interference, economically through cyberwarfare and money laundering, and in lives through terrorism here in Canada.

I'd be happy to provide specific examples for each of these three groupings.

The U.S. designated the IRGC a terrorist organization in 2019, and the EU member states seem to be headed in that direction. We expect Canada to be in line with our closest allies and to seal the deal once and for all.

I have a network of 90 Iranian diaspora groups made up of legal experts and other technocrats who are ready to help any task force that is set up to draft a strong Iran policy to combat these security concerns and work through any impediments slowing this designation.

We want to keep Canada safe. We want Magnitsky sanctions enforced to keep these regime officials out and their assets frozen and to reverse the narrative that has been established that Canada is a safe haven for these criminals, while satisfying the aspirations of 80% of Iran's population, who want an end to this regime and a free, secular and democratic Iran.