A media advisory was sent to Canadian journalists at the end of last month. Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon was to appear before cameras and make an unspecified but important announcement. A day later Mr. Cannon—surrounded by cameras and print journalists—took what experts call "a free kick at Iran," announcing new sanctions on a country that Canada actually has little to do with.
The sanctions, among others, ban the export of proliferation-sensitive goods and also prohibit any new investment in Iran's oil and gas sector. The new measures bar Iranian financial institutions from establishing a presence in Canada, and vice versa, while at the same time banning banking relationships with Iranian financial institutions and the purchase of Iranian government debt.
Since Canada's economic relation with Iran is minimal, experts say the new sanctions—although justified—are in fact lacking substance. They say this, and the undeniable publicity behind the announcement, point to partly domestically-driven reasons behind the sanctions: especially appealing to certain pro-Israel voter groups.
"The significance of the press conference is not to announce to an anxious world what Canada is doing; it is to send a message to Canadian constituencies who would be supportive of it," said Paul Adams, journalism professor at Carleton University and former Middle East correspondent for The Globe and Mail.
The government led by Stephen Harper has been seen as a great supporter of Israel, right or wrong, much more than previous Canadian governments.
Advocacy groups such as the Canada-Israel Committee and B'nai Brith quickly embraced Mr. Cannon's announcement. The Liberals, not to be outdone, also came out in favour of the new sanctions on Iran.
Canada had already imposed a round of sanctions against the Middle Eastern country in June, a few days before the beginning of the G8 and G20 summits in Muskoka and Toronto.
That announcement was set up very similarly to this one: with a vague media advisory, but under a great deal of publicity.
The sanctions are additional to the ones passed by the United Nations in early June, which were driven by a long concern that Iran is not transparent about its nuclear program, and may be developing nuclear weapons. They are also in line with sanctions announced by the United States, the European Union and, most recently, Australia.
"In substance, [the announcement] did not amount to anything more than saying we are on board with our allies, but in domestic political terms it would definitely be another signal to domestic audiences that Canada is on side with Israel, as well as its traditional allies," Mr. Adams said.
His point is re-enforced by Canada's limited economic relationship with Iran. According to a government of Canada website highlighting the two countries' relations, "bilateral investment is currently negligible, with essentially no Iranian investment in Canada." Moreover, trade is also minimal, consisting mostly of Canadian agri-food exports to the country.
The sanctions don't "dramatically affect" our economic relationship with Iran, but they have a symbolical meaning for the Canadian audience, Mr. Adams explained. The targeted Canadian audience in this case is the Jewish community and other Christian groups, he added.
However, he also emphasized that Canada's policy is fully in step with that of other Western countries. Canada is not "stepping out from the pack," as was the case during this country's support for the Israeli incursion into Lebanon or the initial muted response to the Israeli attack on the Turkish flotilla this year, he said.
Paul Heinbecker, former Canadian ambassador to the UN and distinguished fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation, said, "the fact that there are doubts and suspicions about what Iran is doing more than justifies the sanctions."
However, he also pointed out that, in economic terms, Canada's imposed sanctions are almost cost-free. This highlights the political gesture behind the announcement, he added.
"It would be great if Mr. Cannon and the Canadian government were to communicate on foreign policy on all issues as enthusiastically as they do on Iran," Mr. Heinbecker said. "They see a political benefit from communicating on Iran because of the domestic audience which is troubled by Iranian behavior."
Furthermore, the Canadian non-proliferation policy is not consistently applied, he said. Mr. Heinbecker pointed to the nuclear agreement Mr. Harper signed with his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh shortly after the end of the G20 summit in Toronto, which allows for uranium exports to India. Canada had stopped its nuclear co-operation with the country in 1974 after the government used plutonium from a Canadian reactor to build an atomic bomb.
The Canadian government was trying to appeal to the Indian diaspora through the agreement with India, Mr. Heinbecker said.
"If the Canadian government was really keen on preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons, ... it would not be contemplating about supplying uranium to the Indians, who could then use their own uranium supplies for nuclear weapons," he said. "This is why the double standard argument has a lot of traction at the UN and in third-world countries."
Barry Kay, an expert on public opinion at Wilfred Laurier University in Waterloo, said there is nothing unusual about Canada's Iran sanctions.
"Iran is basically a free kick," Mr. Kay said. "There isn't a strong pro-Iran constituency in this country, and I would distinguish that from a Palestinian constituency. There isn't much of a political downside for being critical of the Iranian regime, especially when it is done in concert with so many other countries."
He also pointed out that the Evangelical community in Canada is about ten times bigger than the Jewish community, so if there was a domestic political calculation at play, that group was a target too.
Overall, Mr. Kay said he doesn't think the sanctions "will change a lot of votes because I don't think Iran is nearly as salient to anybody."
A spokesperson from the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade said the Canadian government has a principled approach to foreign policy.
"We make foreign policy decisions based on all Canadians' interests, supporting our common values of freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law," Melissa Lantsman wrote in an e-mail. "And our priorities reflect these values and interests."