


stuffed
with 123 Chinese illegals hove into Nootka Sound, it is spotted by an airborne
fisheries observer. Within the hour its presence is duly reported "to
military intelligence, but three emergency numbers at Canada Immigration
are only answered by voice mail. The next day the ship is discovered sixty
to seventy miles away at anchor in Tahsis Inlet by two off-duty American
policemen. ... Only then do Canada's watchmen go into action. The ship
had been allowed to go wherever it wanted since the previous evening."
(BC-TV, August 4, 1999) Sure, we could have seized the boat then and there
and sold it to recoup deportation costs, but somebody wanted to send a
clear message to organized crime: Hi there. We don't just condone the human
smuggling game, we'd like you to join with us in fostering an environment
where newcomers
can
bask in virtual slavery as they work off extortionate debts to Triad gangsters!
Given the vessel's state-of-the-art Coast Guard dodging radar equipment,
and careful eradication of name, flag, and identification numbers, there
was little reason to hope anyone on board had remembered to bring their
wallet.
concluded,
"'I find it extremely unlikely that that boat came across on a 39-day
crossing unassisted in any way.' ... He couldn't speculate about what assistance
the ship might have received in arriving off B.C.'s shores; for example,
whether it was towed across the ocean by a larger, better-equipped ship
and then set adrift, or whether the migrants boarded the boat kilometres
offshore and then travelled for a few days in the hold. ... [Just for argument's
sake, what if these people came not from China, but from Canada?] For example,
he said, when planning an ocean crossing, the rule of thumb is to have
four litres of water per person per day for simple cooking and drinking.
They
had little response Thursday to the suggestion that it didn't." (Vancouver
Sun, July 30, 1999) Still, let's try to put a brave face on our naiveté,
shall we? Chances are, they won't be our problem for long. "Last year,
the IRB in Vancouver cleared 602 cases involving Chinese refugee claimants.
They allowed 63 claims and rejected 95 -- but 426 (70.8 per cent) either
didn't show up for their hearings or were unreachable. Most of those who
abandoned their claims are believed to no longer be in the country and
have most likely fled to New York." (Vancouver Sun, July 26, 1999)
And of course, we've been through this before; right down to wo
rrying
ourselves sick over the hunger strike. When we accepted 152 Tamils in 1986,
and 178 East Indians (mostly Sikhs) a year later, we established the low
tide mark in the annals of sovereign spinelessness. Interview -- Henry Cho The Man Who Fed the Illegals

association,
according to a CBC Newsworld report on August 5, had started recruiting
more personnel and translators a week before knowing that the illegals
would be released. "How did this Association know the illegals would
be released?" demanded Paul Fromm. "Was the fix in from the very
beginning to release most of them and reward the scamsters?" The illegals,
well dressed and plump, looked remarkably robust for people who had survived
a recent 39-day harrowing voyage. The illegals proved elusive and shy,
trying to shield their faces from the camera. Across the street from the
church where the illegals were being welcomed by elements of Canadian society,
a lone homeless White Canadian was asleep on the steps of an Anglican church
with his few worldly possessions and his dog. Do-gooders seemed decidedly
less interested in helping Canadian homeless persons than they did in assisting
the illegals. On Wednesday, July 28, many Canadians were outraged by media
reports that the illegal ingrates had gone on a hunger strike to protest
that fact that the special Chinese meals being delivered to them by a local
caterer were not warm enough. "Many poor and working Canadians cannot
afford to eat the salmon and calamari being served these illegals,"
Paul Fromm told a Victoria audience. "From people who were supposedly
subsisting on rice and foul water just two weeks ago, this ingratitude
to the hard-pressed Canadian taxpayer is outrageous."
Restaurant.
Opened in 1949, Ming's is Victoria's premier Chinese eatery and does a
brisk take-out business as well. Cho, who has owned the restaurant since
1972, explained that soon after the illegals landed, he received a call
from Immigration Canada asking how much notice he would require to provide
150 meals. He said 48 hours. The next day, he received a call at 7:00 a.m.
asking whether he could provide 144 meals by 1:00 p.m. He did. "I
had a contract to provide three meals a day for 144 people for 14 days,"
Cho explains. He is adamant about the numbers, even though officially the
public was told there were only 123 illegals aboard the ship.

?????



[Presumably
then, as usual, it was a foreign police agency that foiled the attempt].
'I think the 22 that tried to come in 1997 is proof that organized crime
is looking for the path of least resistance into Canada, and they perhaps
see Iqaluit as part of that path,' said Sergeant Lindsey Brine of the RCMP's
V Division headquarters in Iqaluit." (National Post, May 27, 1999)
However disturbing you may find this systematic groping and palpation of
Canada's frontiers, Ottawa's invariable response is to giggle and shriek
with the excitement of it all.
In
July, the top court "ruled that the interests of Canadian-born children
should be considered when their parents are ordered deported. The case
involved [Mavis Baker] a 44-year-old Jamaican woman who arrived in Canada
in 1981. She overstayed her visa and was considered illegal soon after
she arrived, but her deportation was not ordered until 1992, by which time
[the diagnosed schizophrenic] had four Canadian-born children. Her lawyers
argued successfully that deporting her in 1999 would violate the United
Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which states that children
should not be separated from their parents unless it is in their best interest.
The woman, now on welfare, says she has nothing to return to in Jamaica
[apart from an earlier batch of four kids she left there. Presumably they
and their families are now eligible to apply under family reunification]."
(Migration News, Vol. 6, No. 8, August 1999) When Baker's immigration officer
wrote up the case (six years ago), he was so frustrated that he resorted
to capitalizing the important parts in hopes that someone might notice:
"This case is a catastrophe. It is also an indictment of our 'system'
that the client came as a visitor in Aug. '81, was not ordered deported
until Dec. '92, and in APRIL '94 IS STILL HERE!" (Toronto Star, July
14, 1999)
"Three
of the four Filipino sailors of the Maersk Dubai ... have been reunited
with their families in Halifax. ... On Wednesday, Rev. Flemming Holm, who
speaks for a group formed to defend the seamen, said the first three families
arrived in Canada in February but it wasn't made public for fear of too
much publicity." (CBC Newsworld, June 27, 1999) This previously unsuspected
modesty marks a sea change for the gentlemen who never appeared on camera
unless their faces were contorted by wracking sobs. The crying game commenced
when they defied a court order to testify in the case of the Romanian stowaways
and they were still weeping as they defied their final deportation orders.
Naturally this unvarying refusal to obey Canadian law ultimately won them
(and their families) admission on compassionate grounds. To the best of
our knowledge, Canada is the first country to recognize compulsive crying
disorder.