A diaspora caught between Ottawa’s Iran policy and Iran’s street protests

If Canada wants an Iran policy with substance, it also means avoiding the demonization of the country and resisting the urge to paint its people with a broad political brush.

After the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, and the rise of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement, Canada expanded sanctions and imposed travel bans on Iranian officials, which matter politically but also show the limits of Canada’s approach, writes Sasan Issari. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade

Opinion

BY SASAN ISSARI

February 25, 2026

I was born in Iran during the Iran-Iraq war, and still remember the bombings as a child. The sounds and images stay with you. My parents rarely talked about the war, but it shaped our family all the same. In 1986, we immigrated to Vancouver under Canada’s “

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