OTTAWA-
Public Security Minister Marco Mendicino said if the legislation was to come in a few weeks to crack down on the Iranian regime, there is no time limit to hire people to help enforce new sanctions.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a week ago that Canada would bar thousands of Iranian officials from entering the country, pledging $76 million to implement new sanctions.
Mendicino said Thursday that would involve hiring 30 new people as RCMP officers or public servants.
“We’re not talking months, I would say definitely within weeks,” Mendicino told reporters.
But on Friday, Mendicino clarified that timeline, saying he meant the legislation would come soon. He had no target date for hiring experts to enforce the new sanctions.
“The delay, which refers to weeks, is to ensure that we can move forward with this designation of the Iranian regime,” Mendicino said.
The Canada Border Services Agency is working on this aspect, he added.
This month’s announcements follow sustained criticism from members of the Iranian diaspora, who have spotted officials associated with human rights abuses moving freely in Canada.
Hamed Esmaeilion, who represents relatives of those killed when the Iranian military shot down flight PS752 in January 2020, testified on the matter on October 6.
“Canada has become a haven for criminals from the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Esmaeilion told the House justice committee.
Sanctions experts have said Canada lags far behind its peers in the ability to enforce existing sanctions.
“We don’t have a financial crime and law enforcement test bed in Canada,” Jessica Davis, who studies terrorism financing, said last week.
She noted that it can take years to train people with the expertise to monitor those sanctioned.
Canada hopes to not only freeze the assets, but return money to victims and human rights groups, and Davis said judges will only approve such transfers if authorities have gathered adequate evidence. .
While Mendicino had no timeline for hiring, he pointed out Friday that Canada was already applying sanctions, including against Iranian officials.
“It’s not like we’re just mobilizing resources now to enforce the sanctions we’ve imposed,” he said.
“It’s not about starting from square one – it’s about building on an already strong public safety and national security apparatus.”
This report from The Canadian Press was first published on October 14, 2022.