By Michael Levitt, Contributor

Recent reports that the Canadian government is exploring renewed engagement with Iran are deeply concerning. To be sure, diplomacy has its place, but there are regimes whose abominable conduct demands accountability, not normalization. Iran is one of them.

My perspective is shaped not by ideology, but by years of listening.

When I was a Member of Parliament, I was honoured to serve as Chair of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee. In that role, I oversaw numerous hearings that examined the Iranian regime and its appalling human-rights record. Many took place during Parliament’s annual Iran Accountability Week, when MPs from all parties focus on the regime’s notorious abuses, terrorist sponsorship and threats to international peace and security. Committee members heard compelling, excruciating testimony from victims of Iran’s ruthless dictatorship.

Political prisoners described arbitrary detention, torture and other forms of abuse. Women recounted their experiences of repression and the denial of fundamental freedoms. Students spoke of the intimidation and violence they faced for daring to demand democratic change.

We heard from members of the Baha’i community, persecuted simply because of their faith. We listened to families of the victims of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752, shot down by Iran in 2020 with dozens of Canadian passengers aboard. We also heard from loved ones of those who have been arbitrarily detained by the regime, caught in a system that uses foreign nationals as bargaining chips.

Their stories differed. Their conclusion did not.

The Iranian regime is not a normal government. It’s an autocracy that brutally persecutes its own people, sponsors terrorism, takes foreign nationals hostage and threatens peace and security far beyond its borders.

This is anything but a distant foreign policy issue. Tehran’s actions have touched Canadians directly, intimidating and threatening members of the Iranian diaspora. My friend and mentor, former justice minister and internationally respected human-rights advocate Irwin Cotler, currently lives under RCMP protection, having been targeted by the regime. And Canadian Jewish communities have felt the consequences of Iran’s support for terrorist proxies who echo the regime’s calls for Israel’s destruction and threaten Jewish communities around the world.

During Iran Accountability Week in 2019, following one of those committee hearings, I was photographed alongside Iranian human-rights defender Masih Alinejad and Richard Ratcliffe, whose wife, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, was arbitrarily detained in Iran for nearly six years. Their testimony, and that of so many others, reinforced an important lesson that I’ve never forgotten.

This past February, hundreds of thousands of Iranians and their allies took to the streets in Toronto to protest the regime and stand with those fighting for freedom inside Iran. I attended that rally. It was powerful, emotional and impossible to ignore. The message from Canada’s Iranian community was unequivocal: do not mistake the regime for the people.

In the face of unspeakable repression, the Iranian people have demonstrated extraordinary courage in demanding freedom, dignity and democracy, often at tremendous cost to themselves. They deserve Canada’s solidarity, not policies that risk conferring legitimacy on a regime that routinely imprisons, tortures and silences them. Canada has long championed human rights and the rules-based international order. Our principles should not be set aside for the illusion of improved relations with a loathsome regime whose conduct has remained fundamentally unchanged since it took power in 1979.

There is an important difference between engaging with the people of Iran and legitimizing the government that oppresses them. Canada should continue to support the former while remaining clear-eyed about the latter.

The harrowing testimony I heard in Parliament has stayed with me for years. It has led me to the same conclusion today that it did then: Canada should not re-engage with the Iranian regime. Our country should stand firmly with the people of Iran and continue holding their oppressors to account.