Members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) march in a parade in Tehran, Sept. 22, 2011. Photo: Reuters / Stringer / File.

Leaders from Canada’s Iranian and Jewish communities demanded on Monday that the federal government in Ottawa officially blacklist Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization.

In June 2018, the Canadian House of Commons passed a motion that called on the government to “immediately designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a listed terrorist entity under the Criminal Code of Canada” and condemned Iran “for its ongoing sponsorship of terrorism around the world.”

Thus far, the government has not complied.

Since 2012, Canada has listed the Quds Force, the IRGC unit that runs Iran’s global terror operations, as a terror group. Activists have long advocated for designating the IRGC in its entirety as such, like the US did last April.

At a press conference on Monday, the Council of Iranian Canadians, the Justice 88 Campaign and B’nai Brith Canada urged the government finally implement the 2018 motion within 30 days.

Michael Mostyn, chief executive officer of B’nai Brith Canada, said, “Unfathomably, more than a year and a half has elapsed since the motion passed. Why has this designation not yet occurred when it is the clearly expressed will of parliament?”

David Matas, national senior legal counsel for B’nai Brith Canada, stated, “There is no basis in law or in policy for banning the Quds Force while failing to do so for the entire IRGC.”

“Canada has rightly rejected that approach when it comes to other terrorist groups, such as Hezbollah and Hamas,” he noted.

Avideh Motmaen-Far, president of the Council of Iranian Canadians, asserted, “The designation of the IRGC as a terrorist entity is an urgent matter.”

“Today, as the Islamist regime schemes to avenge slain IRGC General Qassem Soleimani, the IRGC poses a greater risk than ever before to Canada’s Iranian and Jewish communities,” he said.

Soleimani, head of the Quds Force, was killed on Jan. 3 in a US drone strike near Baghdad International Airport.

Reza Banai, chair of the Justice 88 Campaign, said, “Since June of 2018, hundreds of Iranians have been murdered just for demanding their basic rights — the least our government can do is sanction the IRGC, which is responsible for so much misery in Iran and throughout the region.”

Linda Frum, a member of the Canadian Senate and a longtime proponent of blacklisting the IRGC, commented, “It seems like an eternity ago when this motion passed. The IRGC clearly needs to be listed in Canada. There can be no more delay on this.”