The New Liberal Canada

"Canada today lifted some sanctions against Iran in conformity with the agreement concluded by other countries and Iran. We do it in conformity with the United Nations. We'll keep sanctions to ensure the proliferation of nuclear [sic] will not happen in Iran, the same with ballistic missiles."
"We'll engage with Iran step-by-step, open eyes, because we still have a lot of concerns about the role of Iran in the region, including for our allies like Israel and also the record of Iran on human rights is very questionable, to say the least."
Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion

"In the past, the Liberal party spoke a great deal about human rights. Unfortunately, that focus has changed. You hear a lot less about human rights, and a lot more about Bombardier."
"It’s the China model. We’re open to diplomatic relations, with no connection to internal issues."
Toronto lawyer Kaveh Shahrooz, longtime Liberal, human rights activist

"There was no human rights agenda in the negotiations [P5+1] at all, not from the beginning. It gives the regime a green light to get away with murder. To Iranian pro-democracy activists it looks like nobody cares, that the world doesn’t care at all. In Canada, sure, if you talk to people who are sympathetic to the regime, they think it’s great. When the sanctions are lifted this agreement will allow the regime to spend more money on terrorism and the repression of the people."
Sayeh Hassan, Toronto lawyer, Iranian pro-democracy activist

DOMINIQUE FAGET/AFP/Getty Images  People take part in a demonstration denouncing Iran's use of the death penalty on Thursday in Paris

"The deal with world powers does not address Iran’s terrorist activities in the region, carried out by its proxies in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen." 
"Iran is almost certainly going to use the newly available cash and bolstered economy to prop up its proxies and try to assert its hegemony in the region, causing more conflict and bloodshed."
Syrian National Council

Mr. Shahrooz had been instrumental in influencing a 2013 campaign in Canada to convince the House of Commons to recognize the Khomeinist regime’s massacre of thousands of political prisoners in 1988 as a crime against humanity under international law. This recognition led to an all-party consensus that agreed on establishing September 1 as an "day of solidarity" in Parliament, with Iranian political prisoners.

Back then it was a year since the-then Conservative government had decided to proceed with severing diplomatic relations with Tehran, spurred by that country's record on human rights, Canada's anger over the murder of Canadian-Iranian photographer Zahra Kazemi who had been arrested as a spy, placed in Evin prison where she was tortured, raped and murdered remaining unresolved, and the Iranian mission in Ottawa interfering in Canadian internal affairs.

Back then, three months after the severing of relations initiated by the Conservatives, the Liberals in opposition in Parliament argued that the line Canada was taking in its sanctions policy "wasn't going far enough". The Liberal foreign affairs critic stated: "Conservative sanctions against Iran are inadequate. Canada must strengthen its efforts to encourage regime change, including sanctioning the major human rights violators."

Now back in power the new Liberal government which has been s tumbling all over itself to reverse as many of the previous Conservative-led government's initiatives as it possibly can, has scurried to announce its intention to re-engage with Iran, to re-establish the Canadian mission in Tehran, and invite Iran to re-open its Ottawa embassy. The stimulant for this about-face is not based on ethics or morals, or following what our allies are engaged in, other than for the purpose of not losing out on any possible economic opportunities.

This is a nation in the Middle East with long destabilizing tentacles throughout the region in support of terrorism, including the kind of breath-takingly grotesque terrorism undertaken by the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad in attacking his own Sunni Syrian population for daring to question the authority of his Shiite-centric governance.

Iran's search for nuclear weapons in its bid to coerce Arab states in the region to cower before its might, allied with its threats to destroy Israel, and its known ordering of Hezbollah to mount attacks against Jewish targets globally, highlight its imperialist totalitarian Islamist agenda.

And this is the scheming, Western values-detesting government that Canada  under the Liberals wishes to open itself to doing business with. The shame is ours.

Iran successfully completed a test-launch of a new long-range ballistic missile, Emad, reported the Iranian Ministry of Defense, Tehran, Oct. 11, 2015. (photo by FNA/Iranian Defense Ministry)