"They're turning out the lights, Jean. Time to pack it in. We had an astonishing survey on 580 CFRA's morning news-talk show yesterday. The question was simple: "Should Prime Minister Jean Chretien resign next year?" The result was a unanimous Yes! Not one caller, not even those identifying themselves as Liberals, saw any benefit to Jean Chretien's continued leadership."

Welcome to the Hey Whatever Years: "God bless the flimsy tissue that passes for Canadian immigration law. Welcome illegal beachcombers! A new boat's coming? We'll meet them in the surf! ... Next thing you know, Elinor Caplan will dispatch Coast Guard vessels to China to pick them up. Wouldn't that require planning? No way, dude. No rules, remember? Don't worry. Be happy."

CAPLAN: CANADA WILL NOT INVOKE SEC. 33 - THE NOTWITHSTANDING CLAUSE

"Ms. Caplan said what she will not consider is using the Constitution's Notwithstanding Clause to override a Supreme Court decision that guarantees refugee claimants the right to have their claims heard."

CHRETIEN: CANADA WILL NOT MAKE CHANGES TO THE IMMIGRATION ACT

"Prime Minister Chretien says Canada won't be changing it's immigration laws to deal with the influx of migrants from China. ... Chretien said Canada is a generous country and we have had this situation for a long time."

CAPLAN: B.C. CAN GO WHISTLE IF IT EXPECTS FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE FROM OTTAWA

"There will be no new money from Ottawa to cover the cost of keeping newly arrived migrants from China. Immigration minister Elinor Caplan made the comments this afternoon in Vancouver. ... She says there are no immediate plans to change the system to deter future arrivals of migrants from China and she didn't offer any new money to cover the extra costs associated with looking after the migrants."

"'What I saw was incredible. Everyone had a human face. It's a very different experience to see the people who . . . placed themselves in a very precarious situation and risked their lives.'

-- Immigration Minister Elinor Caplan after meeting some Chinese boat people

WHAT IT REALLY MEANS

News flash! Federal minister discovers migrants have human faces! Stop the presses! So Caplan has a heart -- that's nice -- but what is she doing about the crisis?

DID THE SPIN WORK?

Caplan has let down B.C. in a big way. The province is stuck with $2 million a month in migrant costs -- and rising -- but she doesn't seem to care about that. Ottawa shafts us again. Nice of her to visit, though.

"The head of a committee set up to discover whether the West is truly teed-off with the Ottawa Liberals reports it couldn't find much unhappiness."

Odd, Victoria radio station CFAX http://www.cfax1070.com/ recently asked listeners --

"Would BC be better off in the future by:

-- Joining the United States?
-- Remaining as a part of Canada?
-- Separating from Canada & forming a new country?
-- Separating with Canada & joining Alberta to form a new country?"

More than 50% opted for some form of separation - and that was BEFORE the prime minister designated East Timor (not B.C.) our compelling new military priority.

Jean Chretien: "We're always there like boy scouts and Canadians love it. They think its a nice way to be around the world."

NOTE: When did the Boy Scouts change their motto to "Be prepared to get shafted"?

"Halfway into its fiscal year, the military will soon go over budget with its stepped-up patrols for Chinese migrants. Long-range Aurora aircraft have increased their patrols from two or three times a week to daily. They are expected to continue the $80,000-a-day missions for another month to six weeks."

"Immigration officials say 125 of the [latest] 146 migrants who arrived September 10 have applied for refugee status. Seven deportation orders have been issued and two people have been separated from the overall group for security reasons. One man is undergoing medical care."

He was at the helm when that first shipload of illegal migrants arrived off the coast of B.C. earlier this summer. He had been hired by the so-called "Snakeheads" to help smuggle humans into Canada. But ... despite his role in the operation, he may soon be released.

This is Ziang Chun Liang ... and ... he was the captain of the first boat from China. As it turns out, it was no accident he landed in Nootka Sound. In fact, Liang says he was given precise coordinates. And once there, two men went ashore on a raft to make phone calls.

That was when a couple of American fishermen stumbled upon them ... blowing the whole smuggling operation wide open, with the arrest of 123 passengers and crew.

According to documents obtained by BCTV News, Liang wasn't just the captain, he owned the ship. According to his declaration, he paid 300-thousand Chinese dollars for it - about 60-thousand Canadian. And in exchange for bringing the boat and its human cargo to Canada, he received free passage.

Ironically, that deal bought him his freedom today. Because he owes no money to the smugglers, he was deemed a low risk for disappearing and an adjudicator has ordered him released.

But Liang will have to come up with a $2,000 bond before he's set free. And his release is only temporary. He has applied for refugee status and that claim will be heard in November. Incidentally, his lawyer told [the reporter] Liang is claiming refugee status on the basis of his anti-government views that have led to his political persecution."

(BCTV News, September 15, 1999)

"VANCOUVER - Attorney General Ujjal Dosanjh hopes the former Canadian forces base in Chilliwack [closed in 1996] can be of use in the housing crisis for the hundreds of migrants who have landed on B.C. shores. Most of the migrants are living at CFB Esquimalt, but it's bursting at the seams.

... But Chilliwack's MP, Reform's Randy White thinks it's a bad idea.

He says, "They're not dealing with the problem. All they're doing is expanding facilities when the vast majority of people in Canada want them to deal with it immediately and send them back if they're here on a bogus basis. So I think the Chilliwack base is a bit of a red herring. If they're running out of space, they must be planning on allowing more to come in, I guess. That's wrong."

White says reactivating the base to house migrants and refugee claimants in detention is a waste of resources."

Former B.C. Social Credit premier, Bill Vander Zalm has a more direct "solution to the problem of hundreds of Chinese migrants clogging B.C. jails and naval facilities. If the situation isn't resolved in six weeks, put the people on a plane to Ottawa. 'I'm sure you'll get some action then.'"

"Prime Minister Jean Chretien's refusal to change Canada's immigration rules is an open invitation to illegal migrants flock here, the Reform party contends. ... 'Chretien reinforced the message that Canada will do nothing to change its refugee laws -- our doors remain wide open for the gangsters who run the human smuggling trade,' said Reform immigration critic Leon Benoit. He argued a system that keeps claimants in limbo for several years is not compassionate, but rather a virtual enforcement 'of the horrors that accompany the people-smuggling trade.' Many of those left in limbo 'end up living as slaves in prostitution, sweat shops or the drug trade,' Benoit said. The Reform critic also ridiculed the announcement that China will allow RCMP officers into its Fujian province to help crack down on the smuggling, saying it 'amounts to attempting to stop' a tidal wave with sandbags.'"

"'We have lost the battle, I have no doubt ... we've lost the battle,' says RCMP Insp. Ben Soave, head of Canada's only anti-organized crime Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit." (Toronto Sun, February 14, 1999)

OTTAWA - The problem of boat people arriving on Canada's shores could have been avoided if the government had acted on a 1997 report calling for detention of all undocumented migrants, one of the report's authors says.

"Had they picked up on these recommendations, we would not be having boatloads of people arriving on our West Coast at what appears to be the rate of one a week and accelerating," Roslyn Kunin said yesterday.

... Kunin was one of three members of a high-level legislative review panel that spent a year examining Canada's immigration policy and published a report entitled ``Not Just Numbers: A Canadian Framework for Future Immigration.''

... The panel recommended that migrants who arrive without documentation and pose a risk of flight should be detained until their status is finalized.

... The report was meant to be the foundation of an overhaul of the Immigration Act, but after much controversy [due primarily to outraged reaction to the recommendation that newcomers should be required to make some kind of financial contribution toward their own language training] it was shelved by the government."

At a media scrum in Vancouver, reporters were shouting questions at Elinor Caplan. It might have been interesting had one of these been heard:

"If he had hollered a question says David Tsou, an editor and reporter for the Chinese-language World Journal, he would have asked Caplan what happens if the smugglers try to overwhelm Canadian authorities with a wave of ships. 'What if they send five or 10 ships?' says Tsou, packing up his notebook and his unasked questions. 'It would be impossible to deal with.'

... Media coverage of the boat people has been closely -- and critically -- monitored by the Vancouver Association of Chinese Canadians, a small but vocal human rights organization. Executive-director Victor Wong ... speaks Cantonese, but is unable to read the complex Chinese characters of the newspapers. Still his association tracks the papers carefully. ... He admits, though, to being taken aback by the 'more harsh' tone of letters carried by the Chinese-language papers. 'There are only a handful of letters who are more sympathetic or supportive [of the boat people]," he says. He blames a 'CLASSIST' attitude."

Now, "the smugglers offer a guarantee: you don't pay until [you reach] Phoenix. ... The coyote is the boss of the operation, but he employs several subcontractors. A vendepollo, or "chicken seller," works the streets in Mexico looking for new clients. A brincador, or "fence jumper," guides migrants across the border. A driver delivers them to a house in Phoenix, where they stay until the payment is wired from a relative in the United States. After that, they fan out across America by land or air."

"A Victoria lawyer representing one of the B.C. migrants says his client has told him that two more vessels -- one headed for B.C. and the other for Mexico -- are expected to arrive soon. ... U.S. Coast Guard spokesman Steve Matthews says smugglers are circumventing tough U.S. enforcement by landing their vessels either in Canada or Mexico. ... Matthews said the smugglers aim at Mexico because it has nice beaches and B.C. out of a belief they can 'make a landing without being confronted by authorities.'"

Remember Pepe-le-Peau and his reluctant feline girlfriend? It's surreal to think that all this anguish, effort and expense is being foisted on people whose first thought is to escape our attentions - and however tight the lid - it doesn't quite keep the smell inside.

"More than 37 migrants have disappeared and not shown up for their hearings since claiming refugee status. But hundreds of other are still being detained and they're getting angry about it. In Vancouver today, the Chinese migrants raised their handcuffed hands in defiance, as they filed into the latest round of detention hearings."

Weren't we told LAST week that snakeheads were "intimidating them" -- or was that the RCMP? Oh well, it was someone. The investigation (no doubt a costly one) into the illegals' allegations of bullying seem to be temporarily on hold: "We have solicitor-client privilege and these people have told us in confidence," [immigration lawyer Kevin] Doyle said. Once the refugee hearings are over and the migrants are no longer in custody, they may be more willing to file public complaints, he said." (National Post, Sept 14, 1999) Nice to start a new life with an ace in the hole. Meanwhile, our determined efforts to 'protect' them from snakeheads are met with ever more determined efforts to get away from us.

Officials from B.C.'s Children's Ministry say 10 of 66 juveniles in their care have also gone missing: "The ministry placed the youths in group homes, but four disappeared last Sunday in what officials described as an ORGANIZED ESCAPE."

"The cost for group home services, translators and English language lessors amounts to as much as $8,200 a month (Canadian) for each of 70 children taken from the boats. The cost for each ADULT being held runs to $8,600, said B.C. Attorney General Ujjal Dosanjh."

During a Vancouver taping of Cross Country Checkup (a boatpeople special), federal multiculturalism minister and MP for Vancouver Centre, Hedy Fry "reminded critics that Canada is a signatory to the United Nations Charter of Human Rights, 'which was written by a Canadian.'"

Uh-huh. Did she also mention what that Canadian (John Humphrey) "said two years before he died: 'CANADA TELLS EVERY COUNTRY TO RESPECT HUMAN RIGHTS, BUT THEY FORGET ABOUT IT IN THEIR OWN COUNTRY.'"

"Accusations of racism have often been used to scare off critics of our immigration and refugee policies so that serious debate can be avoided often to serve the interests of those who PROFIT from the current disarray."

Use semaphore flags if you think that might get your MP's attention. Ask us for blank petition forms and mail-in postcards. DEMAND that this putrifying albatross be removed from our necks and thorough post-mortem performed by an uncompromised and non-partisan outside agency. Call for a halt to Ye Olde Immigration and Refugee Mill while this chronic mess and massive backlog is sorted out. DEMAND a free and open DEMOCRATIC debate on these issues. Canada needs a full national referendum on immigration and refugee policy directions. The fear of course, is that that's all it would take to turn Canadian grandmothers into a howling mob. This ever-present "fear" is a paper tiger, given that it has never happened during the many years that Canadians have been locked out, lied to, and vilified for non-PC opinions. How about giving Canadians a little credit - just for a change?

We don't agree with the Lunacrats that it's so broken that nothing can be done (until election time)

"The government is prohibited by the Geneva Convention from asking Chinese authorities for criminal records out of fear the suspect's family will be targeted."

Now even that jewel in the Immigration crown -- the investor programme -- has been declared a 'massive sham' by the man Immigration Canada hired to audit the programme. David Webber, senior forensic accountant with the World Bank in Washington: "'Canadians were hoodwinked,' Mr. Webber said in his first interview about his extensive audits. 'I found that in many cases there was no investment at all or the amount of investment was grossly inflated. Canadians gave up something of real value - a visa or a passport - and received very little at all in return. ... Ottawa introduced new regulations last April that essentially made the federal government the program's middleman - CUTTING OUT MANY OF THE IMMIGRATION CONSULTANTS AND LAWYERS WHO HELPED SET UP THE FUNDS. ... Since the new regulations were introduced, NOT A SINGLE INVESTOR has written the Canadian government a cheque."

The taxpayer-funded lawyers for the international people-smugglers' exploited customers, described in CBC-ese as "migrants," are complaining that Canadian authorities are abusing their clients.

They allege intimidation. They demand an independent inquiry. They declare that the suspected ringleaders of this huge international illicit business are being dressed in red at their Esquimalt digs -- red being the colour of China's death-row prisoners. Surely this is a serious violation of the United Nations Convention on Not Dressing Anyone in the Colour Red!

What a rib-tickling prospect -- that even Ottawa's Liberal pussyfooters aren't supine enough in their treatment of the snakeheads' human cargo! I await the headline: International community condemns Canada for indignities to arrivals from emerging nations.

Goodbye, Canada of my youth, now land of the loonie and the lunatics! Once you were the country of tough people who survived harsh winters, depression, war, scarcity. Now you are the land of lobby groups, soft-handed lawyers, governments with their retinue of fawning courtiers, apologists, footmen and fixers -- the class that writes off $100 lunches with each other.

What are we up to: Rustbucket No. 4, Rustbucket No. 5? No matter. Whether one or 101, we will mount no adequate defence against the lucrative export to our shores of excess people who can afford $50,000 for their passage, or who fly in to our airports in seven-piece suits, or who set up branch offices of crime on this continent.

Someone once unkindly said that Jean Chretien looks like the guy who drives the getaway car. More searchingly, the prime minister symbolizes the Canada that is like the mob member with weak character and low self-esteem, whose mouthpiece throws him on the mercy of the court because he was dominated by the gang's A-types.

But, to be sympathetic, how much can be expected of even the highest elected representatives when the country has shifted from aspirations to democracy to the reality of a jurocracy -- ultimate rule by nine aging lawyers in court drag?

Behind its wringing of hands and empty gestures a la Elinor Caplan, Ottawa is a willing accessory to this outrage, delivering exactly what the snakeheads promised. It's the Canadian way! Not to nip this crime in the bud -- but to process it better. Hiring more immigration staff, streamlining the bureaucracy, greasing the efficiency.

The result of course is the expansion of the power of the state. Not to overlook the boost to the Victoria area's economy -- for restaurateurs, hoteliers, provisioners, lawyers, police, translators, language tutors, baby-sitters (paid out of the $8,200 a month that the B.C. government says each boat child costs). No disaster so terrible that it doesn't lift the gross national product!

Never send to ask for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for the captive, middle-class, middle-income taxpayer. Multiply by a million this kind of travesty, in which the state rushes in to soothe, mollify, compensate and bureaucratize every special-interest and grievance group, every regional whiner, every sectoral lobbyist, and you have drawn the portrait of contemporary Canada.

"Every use of Sec. 33 erodes the courts' monopoly on Charter interpretation. ... The courts' cartel on Charter interpretation has become too politically valuable to the Liberals to risk over [illegal immigration or] the child porn case. The courts' Charter activism has allowed the Liberals to achieve indirectly several policy objectives that they would be reluctant to advance directly through parliamentary action. In one policy area after another -- anglophone rights in Quebec, francophone rights in the rest of Canada, abortion and other feminist issues, gay rights, native rights, land claims, criminal law reform, and now even national unity -- the courts have become the primary instrument of Liberal party's social policy."

OTTAWA - Costly detention review hearings must be held for imprisoned immigrants who are denied a chance at day parole by the immigration department, the Federal Court of Appeal has ruled.

The case involved Arshad Mahmood Chaudhry, an immigrant from Pakistan who was sentenced to 14 years in jail in Manitoba after being convicted in 1994 of trafficking in narcotics.

In July, 1997, the immigration department used section 105 of the Immigration Act to direct the warden of the prison where Chaudhry was being held to detain him until the end of his sentence.

When Chaudhry applied for day parole, he was told by the National Parole Board that he was ineligible for it.

The decision means the immigration department could be forced to conduct detention reviews for more than 1,000 immigrants serving time for criminal convictions.

The immigration department has admitted that just the first round of hearings could cost more than $500,000 and that the costs of continued hearings would be ``staggering.''

The Federal Court of Appeal last week upheld an earlier trial division decision that the review hearings must be held.

The immigration department argues that prisoners who face deportation proceedings can't be trusted on day parole for fear they would go underground.

``For these people, it meant that because they are foreigners, they didn't have the same rights as the prisoner sitting next to them and as far as they were concerned, that was a blatant inequality,'' said immigration lawyer David Matas, who represented Chaudhry.

(Chaudhry had already been deported from Canada by the time his case was heard, but the judge decided the issue was important enough that the case should continue to be heard anyway).

In a decision dated Sept. 7 but only released yesterday, Mr. Justice Marshall Rothstein of the Federal Court of Appeal dismissed the immigration department's appeal and upheld the earlier ruling.

According to the Immigration Act, A FIRST DETENTION REVIEW WOULD HAVE TO BE HELD WITHIN 48 HOURS, A SECOND HEARING SEVEN DAYS LATER AND THEN EVERY 30 DAYS AS LONG AS THE PRISONER WAS DETAINED.

In an affidavit filed with the court, Edward Rampl, a hearing officer with the immigration department in Winnipeg, said that he feared the adjudication division of the immigration and refugee board could be swamped by the cases."

Los Angeles Times, <excerpted> September 11, 1999

GOLD RIVER, Canada--The 190 illegal Chinese immigrants who motored into this stretch of wilderness last week in a rusted, dented floating jalopy didn't exactly receive a royal Canadian welcome. ... Hit by the recent closure of the town's main employer, the Bowater Pulp Mill, and the loss of half the town's jobs, the crowd on Gold River's docks was in no mood to watch government officials help illegal immigrants ashore. Many locals glowered at the newcomers. Nobody waved.

"You're darn tootin' we're mad about this," said Dayle Crawford, Gold River's mayor. "The government's now going to take care of these people, when we're the ones who need help."

This was the second time in six weeks that smuggled immigrants from China trudged across the pier at Gold River. ... ... Leaders of Vancouver's large Chinese Canadian community, unmoved by the immigrants' horror stories of being crammed under the deck for days and living off a runny gruel of water and rice, insist that they should be deported.

... Darrel Stinson, a Conservative member of Parliament, is pushing the government to deport them immediately. "If we don't, Canada will become a dumping ground for international people-smuggling," Stinson said.

... "For those of us who have followed the proper route, letting these boat people in seems unfair," said Derick Y. H. Cheng, chairman of Vancouver's Chinese Cultural Center. "We had to go through all the background checks, the waiting and the citizenship tests. Now these people come over with no skills, and they get to become instant Canadians?

... History professor Irving Abella of York University in Toronto wants the migrants to stay. They are young and hardy, aggressive and courageous, he said. "We should welcome these people because they are exactly the type of citizens we want," Abella said."

"Caplan yesterday promised to do everything she can to speed up processing of the Fujian Chinese. "If there are legitimate refugees among them, they will be allowed to stay in Canada," she said.

"The rest we will seek to remove as quickly as possible." She said most of the boat people, who tend to be poor and not well educated," WOULD NEVER QUALIFY AS IMMIGRANTS who meet our test."

"Two Vancouver lawyers claiming to represent 17 Chinese boat people ... showed up at a deportation hearing in early August and demanded to represent the migrants, who had already been assigned legal representation.

[Lawyer Kevin] Doyle also found it strange when a piece of identification that his client's family claimed to have turned over to snakeheads -- or people smugglers -- in China, showed up in the hands of one of the Vancouver lawyers.

'I came to the conclusion that people who were involved with the organization of this boat had collected the ID and placed it in the hands of this law firm,' Mr. Doyle said.

... The two Vancouver lawyers, Evan Sahmet, whose Internet site boasts affiliates in Hong Kong, Taipei and Singapore, and Kenneth Specht, were working together on the case.

Mr. Sahmet will not reveal who hired them to represent the group of migrants, stating that client confidentiality prevents him from discussing details of the case.

'There's obviously someone trying to help the families,' he said. 'And you are labelling them as snakeheads and I think it's unfair at this point.'

... When they were not allowed to meet privately with the migrants, Mr. Sahmet addressed them in Mandarin across the hearing room.

... Mr. Sahmet then sent Mr. Doyle a letter he claimed had been signed by his client's mother stating she had hired Mr. Sahmet to represent her son. 'He took one look at it and said <That's not my mother's signature,>' Mr. Doyle said, of his client's response.

When his client called home, his parents denied hiring anyone in Canada to represent their son, Mr. Doyle said.

... 'His mother and his father confirmed ... that a few days after he'd left [China] a snakehead had been by to pick up the ID. The very ID which had been given to me,' Mr. Doyle said.

... Mr. Sahmet warned the National Post should not imply that all of the migrants turned over their identification to smugglers in China.

'If you do make that statement, you have to be very clear that you're not talking about the whole group.'

... Mr. Sahmet claimed he and Mr. Specht were forced to make aggressive efforts to speak with their clients because some of the Victoria lawyers appointed by legal aid were initially uncooperative.

The uneasy situation between the two sets of lawyers was later resolved and Mr. Sahmet says he is not planning to take any 'drastic steps,' which he says meant legal action."

THAT'S THE PROBLEM WITH A FEEDING FRENZY; SOMEBODY'S ALWAYS GETTING HURT "Former bureaucrats who have set up immigration consultancy firms are behind moves to smear a company formed by three Taiwanese brothers, which has helped thousands of Asians migrate to Canada, a top lawyer claims.

The company, Imperial Consultants and its principals Timothy, Robert and Gordon Fu, are the victims of an 'internal conspiracy,' said their lawyer Eddie Greenspan.

'None of the allegations against them is supported by any evidence . . . A lot of this is the work of some former immigration officers who have taken up work with competitors,' he said.

'It's simply scandalous," said Greenspan, commenting on a series of allegations made by RCMP and Immigration Canada officials against Imperial.

Last week The Province reported that RCMP's Immigration and Passport Section in B.C. was investigating Imperial for alleged visa fraud.

This was after Crown prosecutors in Ottawa withdrew attempted-bribery charges against Robert and Gordon Fu last September.

The two Fu brothers were charged with trying to bribe two senior Immigration Canada officials with $50,000 each to change a departmental ruling that affected their business.

Crown prosecutor Mary Allen Doody said the case was withdrawn part way through a preliminary hearing after "we felt there was no reasonable chance of a conviction."

... Imperial, with offices in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Burnaby, was a key player in the immigrant investor scheme, prior to it being modified by the government to ensure better control.

At the height of its success, it controlled an estimated $61 million in investor fund assets. Some of the funds have been suspended by the government after an Immigration Canada audit alleged irregularities.

Greenspan said efforts by certain parties to paint the Fu brothers as members of a Triad or the Chinese Mafia are 'scandalous.'

The RCMP, as part of its investigation into alleged improprieties at the Canadian diplomatic mission in Hong Kong, is looking at certain fake immigration receipts purportedly issued by Imperial.

According to RCMP investigators, the Mounties also have correspondence, allegedly between Timothy Fu and a "secret diplomatic contact" at the mission, who is said to have been helping fast track applications.

The probe is part of an overall RCMP investigation into the alleged infiltration of the immigration computer at the diplomatic mission by locally engaged staff with links to the triads and claims of diplomatic staff being bribed.

'There is nothing Triad about the Fu brothers . . . If they got some kind of evidence they should charge them . . . This is another case of the police force running amok,' said Greenspan."

By way of contrast, here's whats happening with the migrants intercepted in U.S. territory, near Guam, one month ago.

-- There were 151 migrants aboard that ship and it, too, could have been heading for Canada.
-- American authorities have since processed all of the migrants and have now sent 141 of them back to China.
-- Only 10 have been allowed to seek political asylum in the United States.
-- Since May of last year, a total of 20 migrant ships from China have been intercepted near Guam in U.S. territorial waters.

-- Five known ships so far this year and four of them intercepted.
-- Before this latest wave is factored in, 444 migrants have arrived in B.C. Not one has been deported.
-- 91 have been issued deportation orders, but all have been given leave to appeal."

(BC TV, Friday, September 10, 1999)

Liberals were not always this cavalier about foreign ships sailing into Canadian waters. In 1985, when the U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker Polar Sea dared to patrol the Northwest Passage without Ottawa's permission, the Liberals' fevered calls for territorial sovereignty -- and even a naval build-up -- were matched only by their anti-American bigotry. Unlike the current Chinese flotilla, however, the Polar Sea sailed to protect Canada from an invasion, not to facilitate one.

Given this history of Liberal sea-lane nationalism, it was odd that Elinor Caplan, the Minister of Immigration, felt it unnecessary until last week to leave her Toronto home to inspect China's Juno Beach first-hand. In the end her late arrival in British Columbia was perfectly timed: As her press conference threatened to break the one-hour mark, yet another illegal Chinese ship disgorged its cargo, bringing the number of stowaways to nearly 600. These are only the ones caught by Canada's obsolete coastal patrols. A lawyer for the migrants now says two more ships are steaming our way. Last week a U.S. immigration officer estimated that another 3,500 Chinese have slipped into B.C. undetected, pledging an average of $50,000 to their "snakehead" smugglers.

None of this fazed Ms. Caplan as much as the discomfort of visiting smuggler-weary B.C.; she stayed only long enough to point out that critics of the landings were ignoramuses with a streak of intolerance. "The system is working," she lectured British Columbians, managing not to crack a smile.

Of course, Ottawa's definition of "working" is unique: Ms. Caplan's Immigration and Refugee Board has a backlog of 22,000 cases. Even under her lenient standards, fully 55% of refugee claimants are revealed as bogus -- typically after years of appeals and tens of thousands of dollars in absorption costs. Asked if Ottawa would reimburse British Columbia's growing tab for the migrants -- as high as $8,000 per month per migrant in some cases -- Ms. Caplan declined. That's the province's problem, she said.

Ms. Caplan's visit was purely cosmetic; she knew there would be no changes to the law. The prime minister said so himself at the APEC conference. But Ottawa's submission to a band of foreign smugglers wasn't her fault, nor her boss', she claimed: The United Nations and the Supreme Court of Canada tied their hands.

But that's not true. The UN convention on refugees does not demand the red carpet unfurled by Ms. Caplan. The UN definition of a refugee is strict: A refugee must have a "well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion." That conspicuously fails to mention economic migrants or international smugglers. What's more, the UN convention permits any nation to immediately deport criminals who wash ashore. Nothing in the UN convention mandates Canada's territorial surrender.

Ms. Caplan also cites an old Charter of Rights case called Singh v. Canada. But the Singh decision doesn't require or justify the glacial pace of Ms. Caplan's refugee board. Singh gives refugee claimants the right to have their cases heard in person, and the right to meet and challenge the case against them -- basic procedural fairness. That requirement could be met in a matter of days, not years, and a procedurally sound hearing could be held right onboard a ship at sea. Nothing in Singh requires the pampering provided for the migrants at Esquimalt; nothing requires that the hearings even be conducted on Canadian soil. No foreign treaty nor domestic court justifies Ms. Caplan's territorial surrender and bureaucratic maze.

Those blights are hers alone.

What angry British Columbians must now see is that where Ms. Caplan comes from, the system is working. It works to nurture a huge immigration industry of tax-paid lawyers, bureaucrats and social service providers -- all of whom have a keen sense of political loyalty. It also works as an easy sop to the immigration industry's cousin, the multiculturalism industry, based similarly on taxpayers' largesse. This is spoils-based politics: Ethnic vote-brokers in Ms. Caplan's Toronto are pleased, immigration and legal-aid lawyers are pleased, and Reform-voting British Columbians can pay the bills. But there is a larger danger here than the continued alienation of British Columbia. It is that legitimate immigration and multiculturalism have received an unnecessary black eye. Rage against criminal smugglers and bogus refugee queue-jumpers transfers easily to legal immigrants and natural, private multiculturalism. Honest immigrants and bona fide refugees, who deserve our welcome, have been tarnished by this fiasco.

Of course, the snakeheads don't care about the reputation of the rest of Chinese-Canadians. What's troubling is that Ms. Caplan doesn't seem to, either."

If you've been waiting for your home to be requisitioned before speaking up - now might be a good time to register your disgust with your MP. In this world of backbiting and name-calling, it would be an additionally decent gesture to send a note of encouragement to any MP who HAS objected to the catalogue of abuses that are making these updates (sorry!) so lengthy.

-- Your MP's constituency office is listed in the BLUE pages of the phone book - CALL -- To find out who your MP is: (or to contact anyone in Parliament) http://canada.gc.ca/directories/mp_direct_e.html

You can write your MP postage free: c/o House of Commons, Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0A6 -- there's still time before Parliament resumes (a real letter carries more weight than an e-mail)

-- BC residents may wish to ask their MLA what this is costing them? Sadly, that picture is growing clearer by the day.

-- e-mail Elinor Caplan Caplan.E@parl.gc.ca or write - c/o House of Commons, etc.