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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 174

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 28, 2023 10:00AM
  • Mar/28/23 12:34:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I very much enjoy the times when my colleague and I occasionally get together at events. We do not always know what the government is doing. It does not send out a message to us every day on what it is doing and what it is not doing. When the government chose to take the route of not doing a blanket cover over everybody in Iran who was part of the regime, it was an attempt to make sure that innocent people were not caught up in that. That is the route it chose to take. There are senior officials who know exactly how many people are on that 10,000-plus list and who they are. They are doing the best they can to protect people's individuality and their opportunity to be treated fairly. We do not want to be like the regime in Iran and put a blanket over everybody and say everybody is inadmissible for whatever terrible reason. I do want to add that we need to do more together than just label it as a terrorist organization. More needs to be done. That is just one step. It works for us to talk about it here in the House, but more needs to be done.
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  • Mar/28/23 12:36:59 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague continues to ask questions about what else can be done, rather than just talking about labelling it as a terrorist organization. I think many of us want to see that happen. The issue is what else can be done. How do we continue to be the voices for the protection of journalism? So many journalists have been in jail. With the recent incident of the poisoning of many schoolgirls, which happened in over 50 schools in Iran, the journalists who were able to report it are apparently all in jail. It makes it very difficult. It calls on us, as parliamentarians and free voices, to be their voices, to stand up here in the House and outside making sure people understand and care about what is going on in Iran.
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  • Mar/28/23 12:50:00 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, most of the immigration rules that the government has changed, such as visas, are designed to keep people out of this country. Anyone identified by the government as a member of the regime should not be allowed to enter Canada. The next step is to add the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to the list of terrorist organizations in the Criminal Code. Consequently, anyone who is in Canada and is a member of that group, has been a member of that group, or has assisted a terrorist group, would be allowed to go before the courts and have a judge decide whether they actually helped the group to persecute or intimidate citizens or violate Canadian law. I would ask the member to look into this issue. Parliament already looked into it in 2018 and determined that the IRGC should be listed as a terrorist group in our Criminal Code.
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  • Mar/28/23 12:51:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, throughout my speech, I said that there was a lot of talk but no real sanctions. What my colleague just mentioned is real action. It is about making sure that these people are on the list of terrorist groups and that, ultimately, real powers are granted to find out where they are and to urge them very strongly to leave the country.
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