Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion responds to a question during Question Period in the House of Commons on Jan. 26, 2016. Canada will move quickly to lift economic sanctions against Iran and to normalize relations that were severed by the former Conservative government, Mr. Dion announced Tuesday.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
Canada has said it will move to quickly normalize relations with Iran. However, Ottawa has a history with Tehran that will be hard to overcome.
First of all, it takes times to get an embassy up and fully running even if Tehran should agree with a speedy resumption of relations, and that's not likely to happen.
While Canada turned out the lights of its embassy in Tehran in September, 2012, and ordered Iran's diplomats out of Canada within a few days after that, the bad relations between the two countries go back much further. They date at least from the 2003 death in custody of Zahra Kazemi, a photojournalist with dual Canadian-Iranian citizenship, who apparently died of beatings sustained following her arrest in Tehran. Canada never received a satisfactory account of what happened to Ms. Kazemi and how villainous Iranian officials would be dealt with.
There followed a period of "controlled engagement" between the countries when Canada showed its displeasure by severely limiting the extent of the relations it had with official Iran. Then, in 2007, there was an almost comedic attempt by Tehran to post as its next ambassador to Ottawa a succession of two people each of whom, it seems, had played a serious role in the 1979 takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran and the holding of the staff there as hostages.
Both candidates were rejected by Ottawa, leading Tehran to refuse to review the credentials of Canada's ambassador to Iran, John Mundy, who was eventually ordered out of the country.
Since that time, in 2008, Canada made do without an ambassador in Tehran, but a series of chargés d'affaires.
All this means that both sides have a lot from which to climb down before "normal" relations can resume.
At the same time, notes Peter Jones, an Iran specialist at the University of Ottawa, you have to consider Iran's own politics. "Who in Iran benefits from resuming these ties with Canada?" he asks.
"The moderate reformist camp – the people around [Iranian Prime Minister Hassan] Rouhani and [Foreign Minister Mohammad] Zarif – want to show that the nuclear deal is bringing benefits," he pointed out. "But it may well be that other, more conservative elements have no such interest and will delay reconciliation with a country such as Canada" that has been so sharply critical of the Iranian authorities for the past decade.
While financial benefits may be considerable for Canadians wanting to invest in Iran, there's a possible snag there, too: It's not yet clear exactly which sanctions are being lifted and when.
There was a set of sanctions imposed by the United Nations to which all countries were expected to adhere. These would appear to be the ones being lifted by Ottawa since the UN Security Council announced that Iran has met the conditions embodied in the nuclear deal to which Iran agreed.
However, notes Prof. Jones, there is a second set of sanctions imposed by the Harper government that went further. "It's not yet clear if these sanctions are also to be lifted," he said.
If they are not included in the sanctions lifted, he says, Tehran is not likely to resume any kind of normal relations with Canada.
Finally, even if the way is clear for the two parties to resume relations, there's a hitch inside the nuclear deal that may dampen the enthusiasm of Canadian investment in Iran. As a safeguard against Tehran later reneging on its agreement to limit its nuclear program, there is a provision in the deal for sanctions to "snap back" should Iran fail to maintain its compliance.
"This kind of measure may make Canadian business very wary of investing in Iran," Prof. Jones said.
"If I'm someone selling airplane parts to Iran, I might say 'no problem.' But if I'm proposing to invest in building infrastructure in the oil fields, I'm going to think twice before sinking my money in that country. I could lose all my investment if sanctions return."