Canada determined to designate IRGC as a terrorist entity

In an event to mark four years since Iran’s Revolutionary Guards downing of Flight PS752, Canada’s premier reiterated his resolve to label the IRGC a terrorist organization.

During the Monday ceremony, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his government is looking at ways to list the IRGC, which shot down the Ukrainian airliner by two missiles shortly after taking off from Tehran on January 8, 2020, killing all 176 people onboard, including 55 Canadian citizens and 30 permanent residents.

He criticized the Iranian government's "disregard for the rule of law" and expressed Canada's ongoing efforts to responsibly designate the IRGC as a terrorist organization, citing sanctions against select IRGC officials.

"We know there is more to do to hold the regime to account and we will continue our work, including continuing to look for ways to responsibly list the IRGC as a terrorist organization," Trudeau said.

Canada has been wrestling with designation of the IRGC as a terrorist entity for years, but calls grew louder after the Flight PS752 incident. Canada’s federal government has referred to the IRGC as a terrorist organization, described its leadership as terrorists, announced measures to make its senior members inadmissible to Canada, and has listed the outfit’s extraterritorial expeditionary division Quds Force as a terrorist entity.