Families gathered in Toronto to remember the 176 victims killed when the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps shot down a civilian airliner—including 55 Canadians.
On Wednesday, January 7, members of Toronto’s Iranian community gathered at Elgin Mills Cemetery to commemorate the victims of the Islamic Republic’s downing of Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752.
Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 was en route from Tehran to Kyiv on January 8, 2020, when it was shot down shortly after takeoff from Imam Khomeini International Airport. The passenger jet was struck by two surface-to-air missiles fired by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. All 176 people on board were killed, including 55 Canadian citizens and 30 permanent residents.
The Islamic Republic later claimed the attack was the result of “human error,” alleging the aircraft had been misidentified as a hostile target amid heightened tensions with the United States. The shootdown occurred just hours after the Islamic Republic in Iran launched ballistic missiles at U.S. forces in Iraq in retaliation for the killing of regime general Qassem Soleimani. Regime authorities initially denied any involvement before ultimately admitting responsibility days later.
Among the victims was 17-year-old Arad Zarei. His father, Mehrzad Zarei, attended the vigil and spoke about the loss of his son, the ongoing unrest in Iran, and what the regime’s actions mean for Canadians and the broader West.
When asked why it took the Liberal government years to designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization, Zarei criticized Ottawa’s inaction, “It’s very simple. The Canadian law is not married to the Canadian government. The government said a Canadian is a Canadian, but is not Canadian. If their lives mattered, you would stand for your families, you would with your people. You are the head of the government, if their lives mattered to you, you would stand with the families.”
Zarei referenced the oft-repeated political slogan that “a Canadian is a Canadian,” a phrase popularized by Justin Trudeau during the 2015 federal election campaign amid debates over citizenship and national identity. For families of PS752 victims, those words rang hollow.
Despite the deaths of dozens of Canadians at the hands of the IRGC, Canada did not formally list the organization as a terrorist entity until June 2024—more than four years after the missiles were fired.
For many Iranian-Canadians, the delay remains emblematic of a broader failure to hold the Islamic Republic accountable, both for its violence abroad and its continued influence inside Western democracies.
