Canada faces questions over treatment of Iranian conscripts as U.K, Australia take different approach | CBC News

It's just one of the many ways his life has taken a turn since he and hundreds of other Iranians living in Canada received letters on Aug. 6 and 7 informing them they may be inadmissible to stay in the country because of mandatory military service they were forced to complete in Iran as young men.

"I don't have a future right now," Tasbandi, who lives in Halifax, told CBC News this week.

For years, Tasbandi, who arrived in December 2023, had been waiting for a work permit renewal, a situation that prevented his wife from getting a work permit of her own. His 11-year-old daughter has had serious trouble at school since she discovered her father's immigration troubles, he said.

Tasbandi, a computer engineer, isn't sure he will be able to renew his own work permit following his dismissal at work. His boss told him he was letting him go because the company didn't have enough work for him, but Tasbandi suspects a sudden decrease in his productivity due to the stress of his immigration situation had something to do with the dismissal.

"If I can't get another work permit, I don't have money to pay my bills and I cannot go back to my country because I am afraid. I'm stuck. What shall I do?" said the 44-year-old who has participated in several protests against the Iranian regime while in Canada. Iran has since undertaken campaigns to identify and punish citizens demonstrating abroad.

CBC reported last week that former conscripts of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and their family members increasingly face inadmissibility to Canada because of Ottawa’s designation of the IRGC as a terrorist organization. Men across the country who were forced into that military service now tell CBC they feel branded as terrorists by the country they sought refuge in.

They are calling on federal Immigration Minister Lena Metlege Diab to publish guidance distinguishing conscripts who were forced into service and didn’t commit any terrorist acts from full-fledged, regime-supporting members — similar to what the United Kingdom and Australia have done. 

"Canada has a very aggressive policy vis-a-vis national security issues that leads to some decisions which I would say are absurd," said Lorne Waldman, a Toronto-based immigration lawyer representing nearly 40 former Iranian former conscripts targeted by the procedural fairness letters (PFLs).

Tasbandi and five other Iranians who were forced into mandatory IRGC service in their late teens and early 20s tell CBC they self-disclosed the mandatory military service in their permanent residency applications and now feel penalized for their honesty. 

"Why is Canada doing this? We trusted them. They’re treating us differently than other countries [would]," Tasbandi said. 

In response to questions from CBC, a spokesperson for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) said the department recognizes "that some individuals may have served as a result of conscription."

The department "cannot disclose details of our screening processes," spokesperson Mary Rose Sabater wrote in an email, adding the procedural fairness letters sent out in August provide "applicants with an opportunity to respond before a decision is made."