Foreign Affairs committee  We could do whatever we can to support the Saudi-Yemeni peace talks. That's the start, and to try to solidify those and offer them whatever support we can, but it's tough. The Houthis are very unpleasant. They are feeling emboldened now. Their willingness to make any sort of compromises with the Saudis will be lessened.

Foreign Affairs committee  That's true.

Foreign Affairs committee  I wish I had an answer for you. I didn't understand it at the time when they were applying it to the Egyptian military, and I never got a straight answer from immigration Canada or whatever they were called at the time, so I honestly don't know.

Foreign Affairs committee  I think we need to take a step back and ask if we are willing to accept that we are going to catch everybody with this net, and if we're fine with that, then we're fine with that. If we're not, we have to figure out a way legally to differentiate, but I don't know how to do it. Is there a way to track if this person was active in X, X and X?

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, and that is right. As with any organization, there are pencil-pushers who are far removed from a lot of the excesses, but on this question of conscripts and whether they're involuntarily conscripted into the IRGC, as you were saying, I think the numbers are a bit off. Being a member of the IRGC has some prestige in certain circles in Iran.

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, but it's about some of them even getting here. There are instruments already that do these sorts of things. If I remember correctly, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, for example, has been used against other countries. If I remember correctly, after what some people call the “coup” in Egypt that removed the Muslim Brotherhood, for a time, using the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, we weren't allowing anybody who had done any military service in Egypt to come to Canada, and the Egyptian military wasn't a designated terrorist organization.

Foreign Affairs committee  In terms of the Iranian embassy not being here, yes, they were up to some pretty nefarious activities, but their having a presence here helped us be able to see, monitor and track those activities in a way that we can't now. On the question of the reaction if we were to act now, I agree completely with what the professor said.

Foreign Affairs committee  I don't really have a whole lot to add. At least when I was there, we didn't really face pressure on that. We all talked about it. Everybody was agreed on the Quds Force, but in terms of the IRGC, everybody understood the challenges. One challenge, in answer to an earlier question as well, is this differentiation.

Foreign Affairs committee  Do you mean how it got there?

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes. I was in Iran up until about four or five weeks before we closed our embassy there. We were doing all the preparations. I had actually recommended that we should close because of the circumstances in which we found ourselves. The Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act and the prospect of Canada seizing Iranian government properties here in Canada made the presence of a Canadian embassy in Tehran completely untenable.

Foreign Affairs committee  No, I am not.

Foreign Affairs committee  My point was that it's fine. We can do it. I am just not sure we will be able to enforce it, and its real value would be symbolic. That's not a small thing, either. There is some value in that. I think there are instruments now—I'm not a lawyer, so let me just preface that—to deal with some of the concerns we have, whether these are IRGC assets or not.

Foreign Affairs committee  I would venture a guess that they haven't gotten rid of them. That would be my one guess. They have used this as a tool. They have used it effectively. I think they have a whole lot more resources devoted to it than we do. I think that's part of it. We are stretched pretty thin.

Foreign Affairs committee  What do you mean by “responsibly”—

Foreign Affairs committee  The Islamic Republic of Iran is a malignant and destabilizing force in the Middle East and increasingly globally. Its fingerprints are all over the current crises in the region, and it has active international networks, cyber and personal, aimed at disinformation, misinformation, intimidation and violence.