The government didn’t say why it was applying sanctions to individual Iranians who wish to become Canadians and will bring millions into Canada at the same time.
There was suspicion, however, that it might be related to the recent case of Mohammad-Reza Khavari, one of those implicated in the $2.6 billion bank fraud in Iran that surfaced last fall. Khavari resigned as managing director of Bank Melli last September and flew to Montreal. It turned out he already had Canadian citizenship.
Journalists have been asking for months how Khavari got that citizenship, but the government has stood mute.
It is possible Khavari used some embezzled state funds to invest in Canada under a program that allows those who invest large sums in Canada to gain citizenship. The United States has a similar investor immigration program that Washington copied from Canada. Both programs are controversial and regularly criticized as “selling passports.”
Canada imposed major new sanctions on Iran last November, freezing all financial transactions with the Middle East state in an attempt to put pressure on the Iranian regime. With those sanctions, Canadian bureaucrats froze the applications of Iranian investors while they awaited clarification on whether the sanctions would end the investor program for Iranians.
The Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) reported that Immigration Minister Jason Kenney issued an order to his officials Friday saying they must “strictly enforce” the Iran sanctions on investor-class applications. The government has not yet issued a formal announcement, however.
Under Immigration Department rules, any investor-class applicant must pledge to invest $800,000 in the Canadian economy.
Government sources told the CBC the sanctions would be applied where the applicant is seeking to transfer funds to Canada from Iran as part of the immigration process. But Iranian citizens whose funds are held in other countries will still be allowed to apply under the investor class program.
In other words, the sanctions apply to financial transactions from Iran, but not to financial transactions by Iranians who have money sitting in other countries.
Nicolas Salerno is the vice president of Arton Capital in Montreal, which handled about 40 percent of all Iranian immigrant investor cases last year in the province of Quebec. He estimated that about 25 percent of Iranians who want to apply will have all their funds tied up in their home country.
Government sources told CBC Iranians excluded from the investor class will be allowed to appeal for an exemption. But such exemptions would have to be personally approved by Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird.
Iranian investor-class applicants are estimated to have contributed $350 million to the Canadian economy in the past five years. Iranians make up the fourth largest group of immigrant investors in Canada.