Canada has deported only one Iran official — here’s what we know about those efforts

OTTAWA — The presence in Canada of people who played roles in the Iranian regime has come under increased scrutiny ever since Washington launched a war against Iran last month.

Diaspora groups have long called on Ottawa to deport people who have served as regime officials in Iran. MPs have been ramping up the pressure on the Liberals to do more, particularly after the Canada Border Services Agency confirmed it has only sent one Iranian official home.

The government has faced questions in Parliament about how the CBSA handles former officials with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a branch of Iran’s military that Canada listed as a terrorist entity in 2024 after years of political pressure.

Here’s what we know.

Have Iranian officials sought haven in Canada?

In October 2022, then-prime minister Justin Trudeau confirmed this to be true at a political rally in Ottawa.

“We know there are people in Canada now who have benefited from the corrupt, from the horrific regime in Iran, and who are hiding amongst this beautiful community, taking advantage of Canada’s freedoms (and) Canada’s opportunities and using the riches they stole from the Iranian people to live a good life in Canada,” he said.

Daniel Rogers, director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, highlighted the issue in his annual speech last November.

“In particularly alarming cases over the last year, we’ve had to reprioritize our operations to counter the actions of Iranian intelligence services and their proxies who have targeted individuals they perceive as threats to their regime,” Rogers said.

“In more than one case, this involved detecting, investigating and disrupting potentially lethal threats against individuals in Canada.”

In January 2025, the public inquiry into foreign interference found that Iran does not intervene in any significant way in Canadian elections.

“Iran instead focuses on transnational repression to prevent criticism of its government. Iran relies on criminal groups to carry out its activities and conducts psychological harassment online,” the inquiry noted in its final report.

Are there 700 Iranian regime members in Canada?

This claim stems from media reports in 2023 and has since been echoed by the Conservative party, the Israeli government and the Liberal-chaired House justice committee.

Stop IRGC is a volunteer group that includes Vancouver-area lawyers who try to gather information on people in Canada with possible ties to the Iranian government.

In late 2023, the group had a database of roughly 700 people or entities community members had identified as having links to Tehran.

In an email this week, Ram Joubin, lawyer and co-founder of Stop IRGC, said the best explanation for that number came from his fellow co-founder, Mojdeh Shahriari in a 2023 radio interview.

In that interview, Shahriari said her group cannot prove that roughly half of those 700 individuals “are IRGC (members), but we have credible evidence that makes them suspects as being affiliated with the regime.”

A third of the 700 “are basically card-carrying members” of the IRGC, Shahriari said, adding that for another 15 per cent, “we found insufficient credible evidence to follow up on.”

Joubin said that as of now, the database has “about 1,000 names” based on 600 tips the group has received, and 93 of those tips have been passed along to police or the CBSA.

The CBSA says it has received “approximately 280 tips” from individuals and groups about Iranians accused of links to Tehran.

“Our assessment indicates that for most tips and allegations, there is a credible basis of regime association,” Joubin wrote. “We suspect there to be many more suspects that we aren’t aware of, as our cases rely on the number of brave people in the community willing to share information with us.”

Of the cases reported to Stop IRGC in 2024, only 10 per cent seemed to involve Canadian citizens — most involve visitors or permanent residents. The group argues that proves Canada is not doing an adequate job of screening Iranian visa applicants for links to the regime.

The group says it does not make its data public to avoid compromising investigations or spreading unproven allegations.

Can we deport people to Iran?

In November 2022, the government declared the Iranian government had engaged in human rights violations. That designation blocked “any senior official who served in the Iranian government at any time from Nov. 15, 2019 onwards” from entering Canada or staying here, according to a CBSA news release.

That order was modified in September 2024 and now applies to those who served in senior roles in Iran dating back to June 23, 2003. The policy is not intended to apply to lower-ranking officials, such as those conscripted into the IRGC.

The CBSA says that as of March 5, it had deported just one person for being a senior Iranian official after the late 2022 policy change. The Conservatives have said repeatedly that one deportation isn’t enough when Iranian-Canadians feel unsafe.

Another two were ordered deported but haven’t left yet. The agency noted in a news release that people facing deportation “have the right to seek judicial review of those decisions” but did not say whether the two cases are in court.

The CBSA has sent another 20 cases to the Immigration Department for hearings — including five the department said did not meet the criteria for deportation, prompting CBSA to appeal in court.

Another eight cases are under CBSA investigation and one individual left of their own accord.

Beyond these individuals the CBSA argues are inadmissible to Canada, officials also have cancelled 239 visas and reviewed roughly 17,800 visa applications. Officials wrapped up 79 investigations of people who were later deemed eligible to stay in Canada, while another 95 investigations are still underway.

More deportation hearings for Iranians linked to Tehran are underway this week. MPs have pleaded with officials in committee hearings to step up this work and to name those accused of having senior roles in the Iranian government.

Officials with the CBSA and the Immigration and Refugee Board have testified that they are constrained by existing federal laws.

Is this all the fault of the Liberals?

The Conservatives say the Liberals have failed to uphold confidence in the immigration system. They point to cases like that of senior Iranian military official Morteza Talaei, who was spotted working out at a gym near Toronto in 2022.

Liberal MPs have cited other cases, such as that of Iran’s former central banker, Mahmoud Reza Khavari, who has Canadian citizenship and fled to Canada in 2011 — when a Conservative government was in power.

Why is this a concern now?

University of Ottawa international professor Thomas Juneau, who studies the Middle East, said the Iranian regime tends to ramp up its repressive activities abroad when it feels under threat.

A Thornhill, Ont., boxing gym owned by an Iranian-Canadian activist was shot at recently. The owner has said he believes it was targeted because he used the premises to organize anti-regime protests.

Kaveh Shahrooz, a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, has warned that Canada is already seen as a safe haven for regime officials — who might try emigrating to Canada if the Islamic Republic appears to be near collapse.

Was a regime member spotted in Toronto?

Last week, a video circulated on social media of a man wearing a turban and robe, accompanied by a woman in a dark veil, who appeared to be exiting the arrivals hall at Toronto’s Pearson airport.

Online users alleged the man was affiliated with the Iranian government and that he had been later seen at a protest.

The CBSA eventually responded on the platform X that “taking photos of people in public and falsely claiming they are someone else is dangerous and can lead to severe legal and personal consequences.”

Liberal MP Ali Ehsassi, who has roots in Iran, has asked people to pass along “reliable information” to him on anyone with ties to Iran’s government.

“It is counterproductive, and does no member of the community any credit, or effective good, to engage in vigilantism,” he wrote.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 19, 2026.

Dylan Robertson, The Canadian Press