Canada is carefully screening Iranians seeking to move to Canada, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said today.So fuck you too John Baird. And of course Stephen Harper, but everyone knows the proper greeting for him is fuck you. One of the things about Canada is that, internationally speaking, we're somehow "nice" and therefore get to continue on the path of diplomacy and be the intermediary for peaceful solutions involving yadda yadda yadda.
Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird announced in a statement last Friday that Canada was closing its embassy in Tehran and kicking out Iranian diplomats.
Staff with the Canadian Embassy had already left Iran and Iranian diplomats in Canada had five days to leave, he said.
Immigration services had been removed from the embassy months ago. Speaking Monday in Ottawa, Kenney said that was in anticipation of the embassy's closure.
Canada is joining the U.S. and Britain in cutting off diplomatic efforts.Here's a list of embassies. Shouldn't we be pulling out of a few more countries or something?
Speaking to Evan Solomon, host of CBC News Network's Power & Politics, Kenney said the mission in Ottawa was being used for illicit purposes.
"There is licit listening, there is diplomatic listening and then there is national security violations. And there is harassment and intimidation and monitoring of our own community by forces of a dictatorship," Kenney said.
These are the people who will be hurt:
Iranians arriving at the newly closed embassy in Ottawa have expressed frustration with the move.It's a bunch of bullshit that's going to make things harder for a large group of people living here and an even larger group of people that want to get out of that place.
Kiana Alizadeh, an Iranian-Canadian student from Montreal, said the government should have considered the needs of Iranians living in Canada.
"These are the political things. I think it's not fair for the Iranians that are living here. They have to think of these people. So what should we do now?" she asked.
"I don't want to go back for living in my country but I have family there. You know, I have to go, for example, to see my parents."
MORE BECAUSE I SAID SO
John Mundy:
Canada’s reasons for acting so suddenly are not convincing. The Prime Minister has listed Iran’s terrible human rights record, its support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, its provocative nuclear program and its repeated threats against Israel as reasons to leave. These are actually reasons why we should stay. When the going gets rough you really need your diplomats. Canada’s tradition is to be one of the last countries to leave in a crisis, not the first. Iran itself is a perfect example. After the Iranian revolution, the Conservative Government decided Canada should stay on in Iran and under the courageous leadership of ambassador Ken Taylor we saved several American hostages.Brief biographical note on Mundy:
There is one good reason that could explain our action and both Foreign Minister John Baird and Prime Minister Stephen Harper have referred to it. Iran could have put our diplomats at risk. It is possible that Iran has made some specific threats against our diplomatic personnel in the last few weeks and the government felt it had no choice. However, the reaction of the Iranian government suggests that this is not the case. Iran seems as surprised by our action as other countries are. If the Canadian government is acting because it has received specific threats then the Canadian public should know about it and I think our action against Iran would be better understood.
John Mundy is a former Canadian ambassador to Iran who was expelled in 2007.
