Former Prime Minister of Canada, Ms. Kim Campbell appeared on the stage at the annual convention of the Iranian people in exile. She addressed a jubilant crowd of more than 100,000 Iranians and supporters of the Resistance in the suburbs of Paris on June 13, 2015.
Ms. Campbell started by saying; “This is not the first time I have been with you and all the distinguished guests, Madame Rajavi, and people from all over the world. But there are many people here to speak so I will be brief. I have been asked to join the group of women and you will know some of you who have attended the wonderful Women’s Day celebrations that I am the only women to have been the prime minister of Canada, and the announcement of women is something very important to me. So first of all, I want to say that I completely adopt the remarks of Secretary Elaine Chow, what she said about women in Iran. It is very important and women in Iran will be an essential part in building of its future in building the democracy and building the society that you will all want to live in. But you may wonder what we Canadians can do to be of help. We wonder this too because we know that democracy in Iran will be created by you Iranians. But one of the things that we can do is try to keep the reality of what you’re struggle is in front of our own populations, so that the Canadian population will support good policies, and in our parliament from April 30th to May 7th there was an Iran Accountability Week where the members of our parliament all spoke about the reality of Iranian difficulties with human rights, Iranian issues with women, because they wanted to make sure that those issues did not get lost in the bigger conversation that is in the news about a possible nuclear deal.
Canada continues to impose sanctions against Iran. These have escalated over the years. No, we are not important as perhaps some larger countries, but we are steadfast and there has been no divination of our devotion to imposing sanctions and being part of that global manifestation of the values that we share in support of democracy. We have also been able to do something interesting. One of your countrymen has created a website called The Rouhani Meter, and this Rouhani meter is a fact checking website that checks the declarations and promises of President Rouhani against what he has actually accomplished. It will not surprise you to know that the score is not very good. However, what interests me is that Iran first of all ranks 148 out 188 countries under Reporters Without Borders in terms of transparency. So it is very difficult for Iranians to get as much information as they like. But Iranians are obviously very clever at contravening blocks to the Internet because this Rouhani Meter, which collects some very important information and incidentally collected from outside Iran, no Iranians in Iran are compromised by this and it is all done outside of Iran to protect the safety of people. But they have had more than 20 million hits on the website of which 3.6 million individual, 95% of whom speak Farsi. So there is a very good reason to believe that people in Iran are accessing this website to learn some truth about their government, and I am very happy to say that in Toronto people have made it possible for this website to be on the Internet. It’s a small contribution but I am delighted that Canada could help.
Finally our Canadian Prime Minister recently said, as our Members of Parliament and all of our politicians say that Iranians live under a tyranny. This was very clear language. Not surprisingly the government of Iran took exception to this and they accused the Canadian Prime Minister of having an extremist government and only saying these things because they wanted to win votes in an election this year. Well, Canada certainly is a democracy and the politics of our elections are fought very strenuously. But this was not a comment made to win votes in an election because frankly all of our political parties support the same notion. There are many difference between them that make good for an election campaign, but there are no political organizations in Canada that Iranians are living under a tyranny, and that human rights and the future of Iranians is something that all Iranians need to support and be aware of and do whatever we can to address.
So, finally I just want to say that perhaps one of the other things that Canada does, along with France and many other countries, is that we provide a safe haven for Iranians who have had to leave their countries and are not able to live there now, but like many of you here dream to go to back to build a new Iran. And by living in Canada, which is a successful democracy, which means to say it’s messy and inconvenient and full of controversy, but that’s what democracy is. But in living among us these Iranians learn to live in a successful democracy, and that I think is a treasure to understanding that they can take back to their country. When, and I hope in the not too distant future, they will have the chance to build the new Iran. And for those who do not choose to go back and stay as Canadians, they will be part of the bridge between my country and the new Iran, to build a future together in the world.
Democracy in Iran will be a great gift, not just to the Iranians themselves, but to all the people of the world. When we can truly exchange on culture and trade, and in making a world a peaceful place. And I can assure that Canadians, men and women, will rejoice with all of you when that day comes.