John Russel Baird, who served from 2011 to 2105 as the 10th Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs, has a long story in confronting the Iranian regime.
“Canada continues to have grave and sincere concerns over Iran’s nuclear program and their abhorrent human rights records and their continued support for international terrorism around the world,” he said in 2013 after announcing sanctions against Iran.
In November 2014 in a statement about the Nuclear Talks in Vienna, Baird said the negotiations with the Iranian regime were not an open-end process and “until Canada is satisfied, our sanctions will remain in full force.” He added: “A nuclear Iran would not only be a threat to Canada and our allies but would also seriously damage the integrity of decades of work on nuclear non-proliferation.”
In a meeting of the UN Security Council in 2014, he noted that “Canada has designated Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism. It’s involved in a negative way in every single country in the region. It’s provided material support to a good number of terrorist organizations around the world and it has not been a force for good.”
In 2014 while he secretly visited Iraq, he declared that Canada would stand by the people of Iraq but rejected improving relations with the Iranian regime for confronting ISIS in Iraq.
His main act in confronting the Iranian regime is his support of the Iranian opposition, the MEK/PMOI and the NCRI. In his speech at the Iranian Resistance’s Free Iran rally in Paris on 9 July 2016 he stated that the Iranian regime is the biggest state sponsor of terrorism in the world today.
“Over the years, billions of dollars have left Tehran to sow fear, violence, death and destruction. From Assad’s war against his own people to a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, from a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington to arming Hezbollah with missiles targeting civilians in Israel, we must call the mullahs out on it,” he said.
Baird cites the Iranian people, who suffer under the brutal regime daily, as the international community’s biggest ally to topple the mullahs’ dictatorship.
“Make no mistake whatsoever that the people of Iran do not support this regime and they want to see it overthrown. Each and every one of us needs to stand in solidarity with the people of Iran and come together and state clearly that the notion that Hassan Rouhani is a moderate or is a reformer, simply put, is a fraud,” the former Canadian top diplomat explained.
At the “Free Iran Rally” in 2018, he stated: “Madame Rajavi, friends, it’s a great honor and a great privilege to once again join and to stand in solidarity with all of you and with the people of Iran. We come together to support the people of Iran in their great struggle. For years, far too many Western governments have tried to find a moderate faction within the regime in Tehran.”
And finally, in his remarks at the “Free Iran International Conference in Ashraf 3,” home to MEK members in Albania, Mr. Baird specifically highlighted what is necessary down the road. “Friends, it is time to end the tyranny. It is time to end the oppression. It is time to put an end to religious fascism. It is time for justice and accountability. It’s time for freedom. It’s time for the struggle to end. It is time for victory. Friends, it is time for the mullahs to go,” he said.
