Canada must unequivocally support regime change in Iran

Silence is deafening in Ottawa

Tzvi Kahn | Jan 25, 2026

There’s a blackout affecting countless Iranians. No, not the internet blackout in the Islamic Republic, which has shut down the web across the country as millions of protesters swarm the streets. It’s the intellectual blackout in Ottawa, which has yet to voice explicit support for the Iranian people’s call for regime change in Tehran. The silence is deafening.

To be sure, the Canadian government has issued statements. It has commended “the bravery of the Iranian people” and condemned “the killing of protestors.” But Ottawa has stopped short of endorsing the uprising’s goal: uprooting the Islamic Republic. Even amid reports of thousands of casualties, Canada offers little more than platitudes.

What explains this hesitation? It’s likely because the unrest in Iran refutes core assumptions about the regime that Canadian leaders have long embraced.

First and foremost, the protests indicate that diplomacy alone will not lead to fundamental change in Tehran. This premise guided Canadian policy as far back as 2015, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau endorsed the fatally flawed nuclear deal that effectively preserved the bulk of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.

Portrayed accord as triumph of diplomacy

At the time, Trudeau portrayed the accord as a triumph of diplomacy. That conviction didn’t change when Tehran used the agreement’s robust sanctions relief to fund its terrorist proxies across the Middle East, including Hamas and Hezbollah.

It didn’t change when protests broke out in Iran in 2017, 2019, and 2022, which the regime suppressed with bloodshed.

It didn’t change when Iran shot down Ukrainian International Airlines flight PS752 in 2020, killing all 176 people on board, including 85 Canadian citizens and permanent residents.

It didn’t change when Iran violated the nuclear deal, ultimately putting Tehran on the threshold of a nuclear weapons capability at the start of 2025.

Even in the aftermath of last June’s 12-Day War that left Iran’s nuclear facilities debilitated by American and Israeli airstrikes, the new prime minister, Mark Carney, asserted that “an opening for diplomacy” had emerged. Ottawa still sought another agreement that would have provided Tehran an economic lifeline at a moment of unprecedented weakness.

Tehran never had any intention of meaninful reform

But the Iranian people have long understood that Tehran never had any intention of meaningful reform. In the current protests, as in previous rounds, Iranians have urged the regime to direct the country’s resources to their own country, not Gaza and Lebanon, a clear rejection of Tehran’s foreign aggression.

Ottawa has yet to grasp this reality even as the regime once again displays its true colors by slaughtering protesters. Carney still seems flatfooted, apparently unable to believe that an opening for constructive diplomacy has never existed.

Ultimately, Canada must recognize that true change will only emerge through the collective efforts of the Iranian people. They seek democracy, not a new deal. But Tehran will never provide it, because it contravenes the regime’s core Islamist identity.

It’s possible that the Islamic Republic, through bloody force, will survive the current protests. But the uprising has planted the seeds of the regime’s eventual fall. Iran will never be the same.

The revolt has wholly discredited the Islamic Republic. It has accentuated the failure of Tehran’s economic and environmental policies. It has shown that Iranian women will never accept the mandatory hijab. Most of all, it has debunked the always dubious notion that moderates reside in the regime.

All of these developments point to the fragility of a government that lacks the will to advance a prosperous vision for Iran. Canada must exploit this fragility.

A new Canadian policy supporting regime change would constitute not a pipe dream, but a long-overdue acknowledgment of facts on the ground. Iranians seek to know where Western countries stand in one of the most defining struggles of the contemporary Middle East. Ottawa should stop blacking out the truth and embrace the Iranian people’s cause.

Tzvi Kahn is a research fellow and senior editor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow him on X @TzviKahn.