Matthews: Should Canada be calling for the overthrow of the Iranian regime?

By: /
31 May, 2013
By: Kyle Matthews
Executive director, Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies

I can’t think of any other instance when the Government of Canada has so openly opposed another country’s rulers, as it has done vis a vis Tehran. While Canada has not openly called for the overthrow of the regime, it has pretty much done everything else possible to highlight its opposition to the theocracy that controls the country. Expelling all Iranian diplomats from Canada thereby suspending bilateral relations, hosting a cyber-dialogue at the University of Toronto with the stated aim of communicating directly with Iranians and bypassing the authorities, and just recently suspending all trade, highlights that the Harper Government means business.

Before you click away, we’d like to ask you for a favour … 

 

Journalism in Canada has suffered a devastating decline over the last two decades. Dozens of newspapers and outlets have shuttered. Remaining newsrooms are smaller. Nowhere is this erosion more acute than in the coverage of foreign policy and international news. It’s expensive, and Canadians, oceans away from most international upheavals, pay the outside world comparatively little attention.

At Open Canada, we believe this must change. If anything, the pandemic has taught us we can’t afford to ignore the changing world. What’s more, we believe, most Canadians don’t want to. Many of us, after all, come from somewhere else and have connections that reach around the world.

Our mission is to build a conversation that involves everyone — not just politicians, academics and policy makers. We need your help to do so. Your support helps us find stories and pay writers to tell them. It helps us grow that conversation. It helps us encourage more Canadians to play an active role in shaping our country’s place in the world.

Become a Supporter