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Goldie Ghamari, the first woman of Iranian descent elected to a Canadian provincial parliament, served as Carleton-area MPP from 2018 to 2025.
She delivered a passionate speech in the Ontario legislature after Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, condemning the violence and holding Hamas solely responsible for the innocent lives lost. It became a viral video.
Since that time, she has attended and spoken at many pro-Israel rallies and events, declaring her allyship and reinforcing that Iranians and Jews have common ground in the fight against Islamic radicalism.
Ghamari visited Israel late last year and stood in the room at Kibbutz Nir Oz where Hamas terrorists livestreamed the murder of a woman to her relatives. Ghamari visited sites of other Hamas atrocities, spoke with Israeli students about the difference between the Iranian people and their regime, and delivered a message of peace from Iranians to Israelis. She also addressed a synagogue audience, reassuring them that non-Jewish allies stand with them, which moved many listeners. An emotional moment for her was unfurling the Israeli and pre-revolutionary Iranian flags with Knesset member Sharren Haskel, symbolising unity and hope for peace.
Ghamari on April 16 spoke at Mel Lastman Square in Toronto, at a Tafsik-led solidarity rally with the message that Antizionism is Jew-hatred.
"Love is stronger than hate, and we will not let a terrorist society that holds murdered baby parades define who we are. Shame on Hamas!" she exclaimed. “I am a Zionist,” the former Ottawa-area MPP said.
This is Freedom To Offend’s interview with Ghamari.
What was your relationship with the Jewish community before your viral speech in the Ontario legislature?
I didn't have any sort of relationship with the Jewish community before that. I've had, you know, Jewish friends and stuff like that. But in terms of the Jewish community, not really. I was more just sort of involved with the Iranian community, speaking out against the Islamic regime.
What compelled you to stand up in the Ontario legislature and give that speech?
Various MPPS were debating, so I stepped forward because this hit very close to home. What people don't realise is that there are many of us from the Middle East who are victims of Islamic terrorism, and who have been targets of this type of terrorism. And so you know, seeing it happen on October 7, especially to the horrific lengths that they took, it was just horrifying to watch. Then, there are the subsequent celebrations that Canadians had in the streets, and I'm talking about actual celebrations. On October 7, 8, 9, 10, before Israel had even retaliated, these people were on the streets celebrating and chanting in favour of this massacre.
And it was just horrifying to see this sort of savage barbarity in the streets of Canada. Canada is supposed to be a civilised country where people come here and leave their baggage at home. They are supposed to come here and embrace Canadian values and Canadianness. The October 7 massacre demonstrated that there are people in Canada who have brought their hatred with them.
So, in other words, this is something that hit home because you knew of the Islamic extremism from Iran?
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the Islamic regime has been trying to indoctrinate Iranians for 46 years. It just hasn't worked. As Iranians, we have a distinct indigenous identity and an indigenous connection to the land, which goes back 3,000 years. Well before Islam was even invented. Iran was a proper country with a civilization in history. The tactics they use today and are still trying to use, we see in other countries as well, are the same agenda. And so as Iranians, we're very attuned to this radical behaviour.
What's life like in Iran now? Are there modern amenities, technology, Internet access, etc?
Yes, modern amenities, technology, and all of that are there. Certain rural areas of Iran are very, very poor. So when you think of the southeastern part of Iran, the province of Baluchistan, Iranians there have very little to no resources. It's devastating what the regime has done.
But then you have other places, like the capital city Tehran, where all the rich people are -- and by rich people, I mean people who work in higher levels of the regime. And you walk around, and it's like you're in Europe. So, Iran is a modern, developed country; if you look at photos from before 1979, you can see all that. But the challenge right now is that the Islamic regime, for 46 years, has stripped so many resources that the economy is in shambles.
There is a lack of clean water in many places, and that situation will only worsen as the summer gets closer. And there's also been rolling power outages for four months—every day for at least a few hours, if not more. The power just cuts out across the country because the Islamic regime is diverting its power to military resources instead of supplying power to its people.
It’s well known that the Iranian regime treats women as less-than, kills gays, imprisons dissidents and political opponents, and will punish women who don’t wear their hijab quite so. Are there other laws Westerners might not know?
Dating is illegal. It's considered haram under Sharia law, like you're not allowed to be out with a man if you're not married to that man. And often, it's not uncommon for a brother or sister to be out together, and the morality police will come and question them if they think they're not brother and sister. And if you don't have your ID to show that you are brother and sister, you could be sent to jail because they might think you're dating.
Oftentimes, if a woman is sentenced to be executed, the Islamic regime will rape her first, usually done by her prison guard, and they do that to make sure that she's not a virgin so her soul can't go to heaven. Rape and sexual torture is a big problem in the Islamic regime.
How many everyday Iranians support the regime?
I would say probably 10% or less support the regime. We noticed because in the last election, which was just this past summer after the former president was killed in a helicopter crash, there was a wide election boycott across the country. People essentially decided that, in order to show their displeasure for the regime and the fact that they don't view it as legitimate, they're just not going to vote.
Less than 10% of the Iranian population voted, a record low. The Islamic regime tried to, you know, change the numbers. And so you know that, in and of itself, was one of the ways for the Iranian people to show the world that they still view this Islamic Republic as illegitimate and that they just want it gone.
A former Islamic regime intelligence officer, like a high level Intel person, did an Iranian media interview recently. He admitted that the support for the current Shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, is between 50% and 70%. So when you have even the Islamic Republic officials themselves admitting that support for the exiled King of Iran is between 50 and 70%, I can guarantee you, the numbers are much higher. Internal polls show that his support is between 80 and 90% inside the country.
Given how unpopular the regime is, how do they cling to power? What needs to happen for them to go?
I mean, it's a dictatorship, right? So they have all the guns, they have all the weaponry, they have all the power. And they've never hesitated to murder Iranians. They've never hesitated to murder dissidents.
You have an essentially defenceless population. Even if a thousand people come out to protest, if they don't have something to defend themselves against tanks, missiles, bullets and all of that, they won’t survive.
And then the other way that the Islamic regime kept Iranians down is through their proxy forces. So in the past, whenever things started heating up inside the country, the Islamic Republic would bring in Palestinians, various groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad. They would bring in the Houthis. They bring in Afghans and Pakistanis and all these people who are on their payroll.
And because these people aren't Iranian, they have no sympathy for the Iranian people. They're mercenaries. They're there to shoot and kill, and that's exactly what they've done in the past, which is also one of the reasons why Iranians have zero sympathy for Hezbollah and Hamas. Because these are the terrorist groups that have been subduing Iranians, and have been taking Iranian money for themselves, and murdering Iranians, so they can continue having access to their paycheck.
What's different now is that in the past year and a half, Israel has essentially decimated a lot of those proxy forces. So the way I see it moving forward, when something happens and things flare up again inside of Iran, the Islamic regime is in a much more precarious situation, because it cannot rely on those non-Iranian proxy forces anymore to come and murder Iranian people.
How long has this been going on for?
It's been going on for years. People in Iran even have footage of people wearing keffiyehs and speaking in Arabic. And like, no one in Iran wears a keffiyeh, no one. The only people who do are, like, connected to the Islamic regime, or Hamas or Palestinian. Again, no one in Iran speaks Arabic. We speak Farsi. The regime outsources its dirty work.
I think more and more people are now understanding that what's happening in Iran and the fight for the Iranian people to overthrow the regime is linked to this rising radicalism and antisemitism we're seeing around the world. It all comes from the Islamic regime and its war.
Now that you’re out of politics, can you tell us what you think of the Ontario government’s response to Jew-hatred on our streets?
I think they failed. They failed the public. They've allowed this to go on for too long because they care more about votes than their integrity.
Too bad Goldie Ghamari is out of politics.