Tony Clement, Former Minister of Treasury of Canada (2011-2015), addressed the third day of the Free Iran World Summit on July 3, 2023. The summit was under the title: Prosecute Iran’s Regime Leaders for Crimes Against Humanity, Genocide.
Tony Clement: A New Iran Is Around the Corner
The script of the full speech of Former Canadian Minister Tony Clement follows:
Wow, the last speaker. What could be said that hasn’t already been said, you ask yourselves. But I’ll try to give it my best shot. First of all, let’s give a hand to Azadeh. What a wonderful moderator and host she has been. Fantastic. Thank you so much.
And, Madame Rajavi, thank you, thank you, thank you for your work, thank you for your support, for your leadership. It’s the best. Bravo.
I’ve got to start with, you’re not going to believe this, you probably haven’t heard this yet, but the Iranian government took it upon themselves to criticize the French government for their handling of the protests. Can you believe that? Now, there’s a Yiddish word called chutzpah. It means audacity. And I know this is not a laughing matter, but the audacity of the Iranian government often, no, I’ll say always, knows no bounds.
So, I just think that is incredible that they do not have the self-knowledge to understand that the world is watching how they deal with the protests in Iran and how terrible they have done over the last, well, over 40 years now.
And of course, I feel for all of the victims of the Iranian government, that terrorist government, inside Iran, outside Iran, there are many, many, many and I want to pay tribute to NCRI and MEK for keeping the light lit so that we never forget all of those victims. We never forget, and it compels more action.
In the remaining little time that I have, I want to take a slightly different approach to these issues. And I’m not doing so in a lighthearted way, but I think it’s important to say that this Iranian government is dangerous, but it’s also kind of incompetent. You’d think with all of the power that they have at their disposal that they would handle things a little bit better, but no, no, they do not.
Of course, Canadians have personal experience with this. When they downed Ukrainian flight 752, killing 176 innocent civilians, 63 of whom were Canadian, over the skies at Tehran in early 2020. So, the world asked, how could this happen? The response of the Iranian government was, whoops, we thought it was a cruise missile.
You know, it takes a certain amount of incompetence to think that that’s your best defense on the accusation of innocents dying over your own skies. But that’s what they went with.
Let’s not also forget, because I know a lot has happened since early 2020, that the very same Iranian government, when COVID was ravaging their own population, denied that this was a problem. This couldn’t come from China, they said. It must be a plot of America. The result was 150,000, at least 150,000 deaths [sic] in Iran from COVID, many of whom could have been avoided if the Iranian government took that seriously.
Why am I saying so much about their incompetence? I’m saying it because it gives us hope. They are not infallible. They are not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. And they will be defeated by a combination of the actions of Iranians, both inside and outside Iran. And dare I say, because this happens all the time throughout history, by the weight of their own idiocy and incompetence.
So please leave this place with hope. Don’t despair. Yes, we must grieve for those who have lost their lives and livelihoods. But do not despair. Because victory, hope, and a new Iran is around the corner.
Merci. Thank you very much.
