ESQUIMALT -- Close to 200 residents of Esquimalt gathered last night to voice their fears and frustrations about the detention camp for Chinese boat people that has been thrust into their neighbourhood.

"I'm a prisoner in my own home," said Richard Buie, whose property backs directly on to the camp newly erected at Work Point Barracks at Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt.

"All I don't do with the prisoners is eat and sleep with them."

He said he was trying to sell his home before the camp was erected, but realtors now laugh at the thought of anyone being willing to buy it.

Representatives of Immigration Canada, the navy and the RCMP said they'd do their best to deal with specific concerns of the neighbours, such as noise and traffic problems.

But they didn't know how long the migrants might be there. Although the current contract for the camp's use by immigration expires on Dec. 31, regional immigration manager Jim Redmond admitted that Ottawa could, if necessary, decide to extend that.

He admitted he's worried that winter weather may NOT bring an end to the boatloads of would-be Chinese refugees coming to the coast of B.C.

Redmond said Work Point had been chosen because it had buildings available on short notice, and because health authorities didn't want the migrants, some of whom were ill from their journey, travelling too far.

RCMP Insp. Rick Betker assured the crowd there had been no escapes from the compound so far.

"WHY WOULD ANYONE WANT TO ESCAPE?" yelled one wag from the audience, drawing loud applause. [Actually, Immigration Canada had earlier issued yet another warrant for yet another illegal from the July 20 boat who failed to show up for a hearing. In a CBC Newsworld story datelined *Prince George* today - Sept. 22: "Immigration officials in British Columbia say arrest warrants may have to be issued after nine more Chinese migrants have abandoned their refugee claims." Needless to say - there have been no arrests.]

AFTER THE MEETING, IMMIGRATION OFFICIALS SAID INTELLIGENCE REPORTS INDICATE THAT AS MANY AS 400 MIGRANTS COULD BE ARRIVING ON THE B.C. COAST IN A MATTER OF DAYS. (Vancouver Province, Tuesday 21 September 1999)

Hey, don't sugar-coat it for us - just give it to us straight

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There were at least as many counsellors, facilitators, mediators, Lions Club members, RCMP, city police, military police, city council members, representatives of MPs, official observers, and press at the Esquimalt Town Meeting on Monday night as there were residents. Were organizers expecting a riot? Certainly the people who live around what residents call the prison concentration camp, temporary home to the Chinese migrants, were fit to be tied. Besides, each official looked guilty enough for the ordinary tax-paying, working-class Joe to wonder if rioting wasn't in order.

But they're Canadians and therefore too wry and ironic. Rather, they insult and tweak and raise the blood pressure of their officials. "STAND UP WHEN YOU SPEAK TO US!" they were shouting from the floor by the end of the night, particularly at their lackadaisical mayor tranced out at the end of the table behind the unctuous blond mediation lawyer he had hired to ease his way through the furies. The fellow from Citizenship and Immigration Canada developed a bright red face. The burly RCMP Inspector looked mad enough to bite, and the base commander from CFB Esquimalt looked spooked. Four of the five officials on the podium were dancing as fast as they could.

Esquimalt is the last neigbourhood in Victoria where real estate is still cheap. It is also a possible future home of hipness, what with the warehouses, modern blight and bungalows that look out on a harbour-and-mountain vista that would cost serious money in other parts of the world.

Many prosperous working-class families live in Esquimalt. So do a couple of hundred people from South China in the gym and on the soccer field where Scouts, Brownies and Beavers used to meet. There are a remarkable number of people whose backyard view resembles scenes from a prison camp. They say they won't be paying their taxes this year.

"We haven't had a night's sleep since they moved in," said one woman tearfully. Another man almost breaks down when he says that his house has been on the market and he'd sell it for $50,000 less than asking right now. But he can't: No one will even come to view it. THE HOUSE REPRESENTS HIS RETIREMENT.

Floodlights glare all night into their bedrooms. Helicopters chop overhead all day. Student demonstrators shout encouragement to the migrants from outside the camp at all hours. Dogs bark, air horns sound at 2 a.m. and every single citizen complains that the military police roar up and down the streets all day and night, endangering their children.

The CIC [Citizenship & Immigration] man stands up to make the first mistake of the evening. [wow. what a suprise] He says the department of immigration had known for a year that these ships were coming, but had only 12 hours to decide where the camp would be placed, and then build it. This reminds the citizens that their houses were covered in dirt, the camp was built noisily in the middle of the night and where they used to look out at the harbour, now they see yellow walls and toilets.

From the floor comes: A YEAR? YOU'VE KNOWN ABOUT THIS FOR A YEAR? The mayor slides down further into his chair.

When question period starts, officials take the mike every second turn with more explanations. THE RESIDENTS MOCK THEM.

The camp is supposed to be decommissioned at the end of December. HOLLOW LAUGHTER AND SUPPRESSED JEERS. When is anything the federal government built temporary? National policy discussion is FORBIDDEN AT THIS MEETING says the blond mediator. HOW DARE YOU forbid us to discuss national policy, shouts someone from the floor.

Finally one guy stands up. "WHY DON'T YOU ALL JUST GO BACK, OPEN THE GATES, GO HOME, LET 'EM GO AND AT LEAST THEY WON'T COST US ANYTHING." This statement earns the most applause of the evening.

If I were counting on Liberal votes next federal election, it wouldn't be from Esquimalt. (Globe and Mail, Wednesday, September 22, 1999)

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"People quickly became restless when an Esquimalt-appointed facilitator tried to run the town hall information meeting like an annual general meeting: heavy on rules and designed for authorities to talk on a stage to the residents.

However, residents soon got their chance to vent their frustrations when the mike phones were opened to questions.

Layne said she was concerned about infectious diseases the migrants might be bringing.

But Immigration spokesman Jim Redmond said precautions had been taken in consultation with Health Canada and no serious illnesses had been identified.

"GOD HELP YOU IF ANYTHING COMES FROM THAT COMPOUND AND HURTS ANY ONE OF US," Layne said.

Elke Lagasse of Pooley Place said there had been virtually no communication with Work Point Barracks neighbours.

"I woke up one morning and there was a prison camp at the end of the street," she said.

Base Commander Capt. Adrian Pound said the military was given VERY LITTLE TIME [a year, wasn't it?] to prepare for the first boatload of migrants, but has since increasingly tried to keep neighbours informed on what's going on.

Lagasse was also concerned that processing of migrants could go on after the Dec. 31 expiration of the contract for base use between Immigration and the military.

"I don't have a crystal ball," Redmond said. " (Victoria Times Colonist, Tue 21 Sept 1999)

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(National Post, Saturday, September 18, 1999) Jean Chretien, the Prime Minister, was accused yesterday of holding Parliament in contempt for delaying the recall of the House of Commons until Oct. 12. All opposition parties criticized the Liberal government, saying the decision to delay the sitting of the new session of Parliament was intended SIMPLY TO AVOID ADDRESSING A HOST OF CONTENTIOUS ISSUES FACING THE COUNTRY. Don Boudria, the House leader, announced yesterday that Parliament will be prorogued today, TWO DAYS before it was scheduled to return for normal business after a three-month recess. ... 'It is a contempt of Parliament and a contempt of the Canadian people,' the Reform leader charged. 'It is an attempt to avoid the government's democratic responsibilities.'"

"Canadians, including members of Parliament and party leaders are being kept deliberately in the dark. ... That's just wrong in a democracy." (Joe Clark)

HEY - NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT "So far, the House of Commons has sat for only 73 days this year." (National Post, Saturday, September 18, 1999)

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"Asked recently about the growing crisis on the West Coast, Jean Chretien, the Prime Minister, brushed it off as a minor problem. His comments indicated he has no understanding either of the magnitude of the situation, or its root causes. ... Mr. Chretien indicated he felt the illegal migrants were fleeing for good reason, because they 'were not treated normally' at home. In fact, researchers with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the U.S. National Science Foundation and the Center for the Study of Asian Enterprise Crime have all examined this issue in detail and concluded the same thing -- THE IMMIGRANTS ARE COMING FOR ECONOMIC REASONS. They are coming to make money, not to flee oppression or to voice disfavour with the Communist regime." (National Post, Thursday, September 16, 1999)

Just as a humorous footnote, our old Immigration Minister was spared inconvenience when she was summarily replaced by the new immigration minister at the outset of the crisis. Now "the government is poised to appoint a new head of the Immigration and Refugee Board. Nurjehan Mawani, current chairperson of the board, which determines refugee claims and adjudicates other immigration matters, will step down next month when her term ends." (Toronto Star, September 20, 1999) However much the personnel may shuffle, we're still paying for the same old policies lurching over the hummocks of previous disasters.

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"I'm not saying I'd vote for them, but the federal Liberals sure do know politics when it comes to their lax attitude toward the Chinese, as well as other, migrants. All newcomers to this nation, who succeed in someday becoming Canadian citizens, someday become grateful voters." (Letter, National Post, Monday, September 13, 1999)

"Our refugee system has to be the single-most inefficient aspect of our entire governmental system. It is also the most self-serving. Its principal beneficiaries are the immigration lawyers and bureaucrats who live off it, and the Liberal politicians who pick up virtually 100 per cent of the immigrant vote - worth some 30 seats and the only block vote left in our electoral politics." (Toronto Star Friday 17 September 1999)

"It's absolutely out of control. The minister stated yesterday that they're not going to stand for this, they're not going to allow Canadians to be taken advantage of and they're not going to let these ships come in undetected. I DON'T KNOW IF SHE HAS REALIZED IT, BUT I THINK THESE SHIPS ARE LOOKING TO BE DETECTED." (Gary Lunn, BC Reform MP, 'The National', September 10, 1999)

"In a rhetorical flight of fancy, Immigration Minister Elinor Caplan has even invoked the St. Louis, the shipload of Jewish refugees that was turned away from our shores by the Mackenzie King government during World War II. That shameful episode, she implied, can never be permitted to happen again in our compassionate society. Really? So now a human-smuggling operation is analogous to the Holocaust?" (Montreal Gazette, Monday 13 September 1999)

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This goes back to the first intercepted boatload (hats off to off-duty American cops. Why don't ON-DUTY Canadian officials ever seem to break these sinister rings?). The critical chronology of events (weapons discovered and -THEN- a hunger strike) has consistently failed to engage Canadian media attention.

"Police revealed the discovery of the weapons yesterday ... The compound search was sparked after an RCMP officer noticed a migrant attempting to conceal a TINFOIL DINNER PLATE. The Sunday night [ JULY 25 ] search revealed sharpened pens, combs, safety pins and several solid brass fittings removed from the floor of the gymnasium where the migrants are being detained at Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt. ... 'We found hidden or concealed items that had the potential to be used as weapons,' RCMP Const. Tracey Rook said yesterday. 'One individual had taken a TINFOIL DINNER PLATE, had torn a piece off, folded it a number of times and given it a very sharp edge so that it could be used as a weapon.'" (National Post, Tuesday, July 27, 1999)

OF COURSE, IT'S ALWAYS POSSIBLE THAT THE DETAINEES WERE MERELY PROTESTING GLOBAL WARMING AND THE FRAGILITY OF PLANET EARTH'S OZONE LAYER - BUT HOW OTHERWISE PECULIAR THAT THIS HUNGER STRIKE AND FIRST AIRING OF 'RIGHTS ABUSES' JUST HAPPENS TO COINCIDE WITH THE REALIZATION THAT STYROFOAM "NERF-WARE" HAD OFFICIALLY REPLACED WEAPONS-GRADE ALUMINUM CONTAINERS. NO-NO-NO. NOT IN THE LEAST. IT'S MERELY (ANOTHER) SUSPICIOUS-SOUNDING ANOMALY THAT HAS NOT YET BEEN TOUCHED BY THE MAGIC "SPIN CANADA" WAND.

"VICTORIA -- Police and immigration officials ordered a security lockdown of 123 Chinese migrants Wednesday [ JULY 28 ] when the migrants launched a hunger strike MOMENTS AFTER THEIR LUNCH WAS SERVED. ... 'Numerous individuals refused to eat. We don't know exactly why,' RCMP Constable Tracey Rook said. ... 'I've heard complaints that the food is cold,' [legal-aid lawyer Leandre Rupert-Bailey] said Wednesday. 'A number of people are asking why they are being treated like this.' In addition to complaints about the food, they have complained about being strip searched and find it humiliating being watched by security officers as they shower and brush their teeth while naked. ... In addition, Rupert-Bailey said, the migrants are fearful of the tight security and have been frightened by police dogs outside the gymnasium where they are being held." (Vancouver Sun, Thursday, 29 July 1999)

In an exclusive interview with CFIRC, restaurateur Henry Cho said the detainees (unmoved by their menu of sauteed calamari and steamed salmon) had: "'Complained that the food was not hot enough.' This is a complaint that the experienced caterer hotly rejects. 'I used tin foil containers and they can keep the food hot for almost an hour,' he said. 'THEN, THEY TOLD ME NOT TO USE THE TIN FOIL SINCE THEY [THE ILLEGALS] WERE USING IT FOR SOME KIND OF PURPOSE.'" (Canadian Immigration Hotline #116, September 1999)

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"They've done things like giving the cookies from their lunch to the migrants in the gymnasium." (RCMP Const. Tracey Rook, 'The National', September 10, 1999)

According to a study by Rutgers University sociologist Ko-lin Chin last year ... 'Illegal migration is a fact of life in the Fuzhou area . . . The bottom line is whether a person makes it or not. 'Those who succeeded were praised, those who failed were looked down upon,' his study found." (Toronto Star, July 22, 1999)

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The Tibetans: "TORONTO - Another 28 Tibetans arrived at the Seaton House shelter last night in five TAXIS direct from the Fort Erie border crossing ... There's close to 60 staying at Seaton House [a city-run men's hostel] ... The Tibetans didn't want to stay in the main quarters. "It was incongruent with their lifestyle and many of them are holy people,"says Boris Rosolak, the Seaton House manager. "They found it too crowded for their liking. So they were moved to these more private rooms." (CBC Newsworld, Aug 16 1999 6:45 PM EDT)

The Kosovars: Toronto's "Albanian and Muslim leaders say they are upset and frustrated with the way Kosovar refugees have been handled in Canada ... 'Many [of the first returning planeload] left Canada yesterday in a terrible mood,' said Halit Hoxha, president of the Albanian Community Association. ... Their charges include: Clothing being distributed to Muslim women that doesn't respect their modesty." (Toronto Star, July 8, 1999)

Trevor Lautens wrote in the September 11, Vancouver Sun (facetiously, we thought): "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."

"VANCOUVER - The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is looking into the treatment of Chinese migrants in detention in British Columbia after complaints that some have been mistreated by police. Lawyers for the migrants, detained as their ships attempted to enter Canada illegally, have accused police of roughing up some of the people, subjecting others to unnecessary strip searches and generally, tormenting them by sending attack dogs into their sleeping quarters at night. ... Senior UN staff will meet with federal officals next week to discuss the concerns."

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"After the failure of the United Nations to protect refugees in Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo and now East Timor or to raise even mild concern over human rights abuses in China and Cuba, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is preparing to confront Canada over our human rights record. The UNHCR is troubled by the Canadian government's decision to detain in jail many of the 300 Chinese migrants who landed on the Pacific coast over the last two months. While Ottawa has hurried to buil[d] temporary housing, the construction work has not kept up with the growing number of boats. Accordingly, British Columbia's correction system has been used as a stopgap measure. UN human rights watchers are concerned about the migrants' living conditions and are preparing to voice these concerns to the Canadian government next week.

... According to the UNHCR, CANADA LEADS THE WORLD IN ACCEPTANCE OF REFUGEE CLAIMS -- more than 53% of those seeking asylum are granted refugee status versus a GLOBAL AVERAGE OF 11%. ... Reasonably enough, Canadians are demanding changes in the country's flawed refugee system to slow the number of illegitimate claimants.

... The federal government must do what it failed to do toward the boats bearing migrants to B.C. -- turn them away without a hearing."

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More than 180 Chinese migrants are being moved next week to an old jail in Prince George. About 300 of the 600 migrants who arrived this summer are being detained in Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island prisons that are almost full. ...

... The decision rankled Prince George Mayor Colin Kinsley, who called immigration officials "irresponsible" for not calling him. "I found out through the media," Kinsley said. "It's very disturbing that this has to take place." ... And he said he phoned Attorney-General Ujjal Dosanjh to say his community doesn't have the resources to handle any migrants who might eventually be released. (Vancouver Province, Friday 17 September 1999)

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"Under Sadako Ogata, according to critics, UNHCR ... is wasting millions of dollars donated by Western governments because of incompetent management, dubious accounting practices, and alleged fraud." (Financial Times of London, July 30, 1998)

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"We accept about half. This acceptance rate is roughly five times the international average. Rejection, though, is almost meaningless since only about 10 per cent of those ruled not to be refugees are actually 'removed' (the bureaucartic term for deportation)." (Toronto Star Friday 17 September 1999)

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Those arch-meddlers at the U.N. have just cranked out another report (Hooray!) In this version of pass-the-buck-and-make-it-snappy, the "developed" world is deemed to be responsible for the Third World's intractable poverty. While the UN Conference on Trade and Development fastidiously avoids mentioning the militarization and nuclear posturing that efficiently gobbles up budgets in the "developing" world, it does admit that: "in Africa, the growth rate is barely keeping up with population growth." Whoa! Radical!

There were 78 million children born on this planet last year - almost all of them in the Third World. Last month, India joined China in boasting a population of over 1-billion. Sometime in the month of October - probably the 12th - the global population will click over to 6-billion. (see attached: -"births"- for a graphic illustration of Third World profligacy)

While Canadian officials tend to look kindly on refugee claims based on China's notorious one-child policy, "the policy was always something of a misnomer. Rural families, ethnic minorities, workers in hazardous professions, parents of disabled children and a list of others have long been allowed to have more than one child." (National Post, Sept. 11, 1999) The problem is that if you wanted to live in a Chinese city - you were restricted to one child (the rule has been gradually relaxed over several years). But Chinese cities are where the money is: "In 1996, city dwellers made an average 4,839 yuan [$872.668 Cdn] per year and rural residents 1,926 yuan [$347.282 Cdn]." (South China Morning Post, August 3, 1998) Hmm - time to emigrate?

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"China has a free-floating population of 150 million surplus workers, many of whom dream of finding jobs in the United States. And Canada's immigration policy has propped the back door wide open for them." (National Post, September 16, 1999) ______________________________

Paul George, an Asian expert, wrote a paper for CSIS in 1994... "A number of factors indicate that people-smuggling from China will become an increasingly serious problem ... the tide of illegal immigrants is expected to grow." And he warned that the trend could threaten Canada's stability. "Large population flows, regardless of whether they are legal or illegal, are potential(ly) destabilizing for the recipient countries ... "Such concerns would include the political impact of the influx of massive numbers of people, especially in volumes that would swamp the capacity of the country's immigrant-processing facilities, challenge Canada's asylum policy, and cause domestic political problems." (National Post, September 16, 1999)

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COPENHAGEN, (AFP) - The European Union is considering linking aid to five developing nations to a bid to discourage illegal immigrants from those countries, the daily Berlingske Tidende reported Wednesday. The five nations are Afghanistan, Iraq, Morocco, Somalia and Sri Lanka, source of a large number of illegal immigrants. In 1998, 290,000 people requested political asylum in EU countries. The proposal is part of a plan by the EU presidency, currently held by Finland, to coordinate immigration policy -- to be debated at the European summit in October, the daily said.

"The goal is not to keep asylum-seekers out of Europe, but to provide accurate information to would-be immigrants on the difficulties involved in obtaining asylum, a residence permit and welfare assistance," Foreign Minister Niels Helveg Petersen told reporters on Tuesday. [In other words - to discourage them] The plan would include an EU THREAT TO HALT DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE as a means of pressuring countries to TAKE BACK CITIZENS whose requests for asylum were turned down, the paper said. (Agence France-Presse, Wednesday, 08-Sep-1999)

VANCOUVER - U.S. officials warn that the groups smuggling human beings are using new means for bringing people to North America. They say people are reaching the West Coast of North America in shipping containers on cargo ships.

U.S. Coast Guard officials say they've detected several containers in the past few months. Lieutenant Commander Jeff Robertson is with the U.S. Coast Guard. He says, "We're seeing a variety of means that these illegal smugglers are using to try to come into the United States or even into Canada. And one of those is using shipping containers. It appears that they are making a transit across the Pacific in the shipping containers and are living inside of them."

Robertson says it's difficult to detect people in board the massive vessels, some of which may carry many hundreds of containers. (CBCNewsworld, Sep 16 1999 12:42 PM PDT)

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Canada's current Immigration Act (over 20 years old) has been revised dozens of times as it metastasizes into an irrelevant pudding. For years, the bureaucratic assembly line has been churning out Immigration Department recommendations, reviews and white papers - but it is only now - under conditions of genuine crisis - that Immigration Canada realizes that it really loves the old, patched and duct-taped Immigration Act after all! In fact, suddenly, the old Act is so adorable, Immigration Canada can't bear to stray from a single letter of fossilized law.

Canada is NOT a tabula rasa, just waiting for unlimited and unrestricted immigration to work its magic. Whatever your opinion of immigration policy - all of us can surely agree that a truly good policy requires work and commitment. If we join the government and look on immigration as a sometime commodity / sometime natural resource -- then it is far too important to deliver into the hands of those who know how to profit by plundering it. Remind your MP that people sneaking into the U.S. will NOT be voting next election - immigration lawyers and other scavengers pecking at Canada's corpse may be noisy, but they are numerically insignificant. The really powerful and influential lobby group here is the Canadian people. That's clearer as more and more begin to speak up -- isn't that called democracy?

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Mr. John Williams (St. Albert, Ref): ... If people want to get into this country by the back door and at the same time have a legal process, they come in and apply for refugee status even though they do not qualify. They work the system and drag it out. They go for the appeal. Then they go for the risk assessment. Then they go for the humanitarian appeal because by this time they have started a family. They wait a few more years and Canadian citizenship is there for the asking. They have totally end-run the entire system. By virtue of Bill C-63 we are now granting these people automatic entry into Canada. When that gets out we can see a flood of people coming into this country, none of whom would qualify under the rules. Yet Bill C-63 grants them Canadian citizenship after 10 years. This government by its inability to manage the process properly is subverting and debasing the value of Canadian citizenship. I would hope it would take that seriously, stop it and stop it now.

Mr. Andrew Telegdi (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Citizenship and Immigration,Lib.): Mr. Speaker ... People who are set for deportation will be deported. The fact that their child has Canadian citizenship status does not stop deportation. The child at that point has the choice of going with his or her parents. So far they have gone with the parents.

Mr. John Williams: Mr. Speaker, I find it rather laughable that a two-year old child or a child who is just a baby would have choices that it could intelligently make.

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As a fully-paid Snakehead customer, you are entitled to a complete array of excellent services upon our arrival. You might want to use the occasion to telephone New York to arrange details of your impending visit via Akwesasne Bus Lines. (Ottawa Sun, September 14, 1999)

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BOSTON-- The last three defendants belonging to a Chinese alien smuggling organization were sentenced by a federal judge on Jan. 28. Sang Li, Ben Lin and Mao Bing Mu, all from the Peoples Republic of China, were handed sentences of 12, 10 and 8 years respectively. United States Coast Guard, Jan. 28, 1998 http://www.d1dpa.com/xing-da.html

"Even when arrests are made, the sentences for human smuggling aren't much of a deterrent. Nine Korean crew members arrested trying to flee Canadian waters after dumping 131 illegal migrants off a remote northern B.C. island face 10 years imprisonment or a $500,000 fine. BUT THOSE CONVICTED OF HUMAN SMUGGLING IN CANADIAN COURTS HAVE FACED AS LITTLE AS A FEW MONTHS IN JAIL AND FINES DWARFED BY THE POTENTIAL PROFIT. Many of the migrants who have arrived in British Columbia this summer reported paying $30,000 to $40,000 each -- a near $18-MILLION PAYOFF for the four boats. (Canadian Press, Sunday, September 19, 1999)

"Therein lies the beauty of people-trafficking. When drug smugglers are caught they usually go to prison and lose their shipment. When migrants are caught, THE GAME MERELY STARTS OVER. 'Drugs used to be No. 1. Now it's people,' says a smuggler who introduces himself as Victor. 'I have a friend who got caught by the DEA for drug running. He's doing six years in prison. But WE TEACH THE PEOPLE THAT IF THE BORDER PATROL CATCHES US, DON'T SAY WHO THE COYOTE [SNAKEHEAD] IS.' MIGRANTS RARELY BETRAY THEIR GUIDES, WHO ARE OFTEN UNDER 18 ANYWAY AND IMMUNE FROM PROSECUTION FOR PEOPLE-SMUGGLING IN U.S. COURTS." (Newsweek, September 13, 1999, People Smugglers Inc.)

"Ship 2: Arrived Aug. 11 off Kunghit Island near Queen Charlottes; 131 on board, including 44 unaccompanied juveniles, five accompanied juveniles; FIVE JUVENILES AMONG SUSPECTED ORGANIZERS." (Canadian Press, Sunday, September 19, 1999)

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Toronto city councillor Gordon Chong, writing in the Toronto Sun, September 18, 1999:

"A little more than than a week before the appointment of Adrienne Clarkson, Canada's next Governor General, was glowingly announced on the front pages of Toronto's Chinese-language dailies, another far more sinister headline appeared in one.

In bold type, SING TAO wrote: 'Police worried that Chinatown's Fujian gangs' influence is strong.' The subtitle was: 'Already taken root in Chinatown and linked up with the U.S. FOOK CHING.' 'FOOK CHING' (Fujian Youth) is the name of a predatory and violent Fujianese gang first identified in the 1080s in New York's Chinatown. It was even involved in turf wars with other Chinese gangs.

In the SING TAO story, a Chinese-speaking, ethnic Chinese Toronto police officer captured the fears of both the police and the immigrant Chinese Canadian community about the increasing number of Fujianese 'snakes' - passengers - landing in rusty ships on Canada's West Coast.

And yet there was no ensuing hysterical uproar accusing the officer of racism in the Chinese Canadian community. It was simply recognized as a legitimate concern based on mutual knowledge and experience. In fact, there is a concern that the increasing numbers arriving on our shores will make it difficult to control and follow the Fujianese gangs' organization and criminal activities.

Once the gangs expand their activities, security in Toronto's Chinatown could be seriously compromised. THE OFFICER 'CONFIRMED' THAT FUJIANESE GANGS HAVE ALREADY 'TAKEN ROOT' IN THE DUNDAS-SPADINA CHINATOWN AND THE BROADVIEW-GERRARD CHINATOWN AND HAVE 'LINKED UP WITH GANGS IN THE EASTERN U.S., ESPECIALLY IN NEW YORK.'

... The article concluded with an additional even more serious concern. ONCE THE FUJIANESE GANGS HAVE BECOME BIG ENOUGH IN TORONTO, THERE WILL BE 'SERIOUS CONFLICTS OF INTEREST' WITH OTHER ESTABLISHED GANGS. TRANSLATED, THAT MEANS TURF WARS.

... What does all this mean for us - both the Chinese Canadian and the broader community? IT MEANS WE SHOULD REFUSE TO BE BROWBEATEN BY THE IMMIGRATION AND REFUGEE LOBBY BULLIES OR BLEEDING HEARTS. WE SHOULD NOT BE COWED INTO UNCRITICALLY ACCEPTING THE SOB STORIES WHICH ARE IN MANY CASES NOW BEING FABRICATED TO EXPLOIT WORLD-RENOWNED CANADIAN COMPASSION.

WHILE AN ATTEMPT IS BEING MADE TO PORTRAY THE HUMAN CARGO ARRIVING ON CANADA'S WEST COAST ENTIRELY AS INNOCENT VICTIMS, IN FACT, THEY ARE WILLING PARTICIPANTS IN THIS ILLEGAL ACTIVITY.

... The often desperate human cargo washing up on our shore - after all, not everyone is a criminal - IS NONETHELESS MORE CONTAMINATED THAN MOST CANADIANS REALIZE.

It is not a racist revival of the yellow peril spectre to raise this issue -- especially when it is raised by Canadians of Chinese descent. It is engendered by a sincere and grave concern for the safety and security of Canadian citizens (both native-born and naturalized) as well as the noncriminal element of the human flotsam.

But is Ottawa listening? Is anyone?" <end>

Apparently not. Despite the fact that the first words to appear on the Canadian Intelligence Security Service' web page devoted to "Transnational Criminal Activity" assert:

"Organized crime is the federal government's NUMBER ONE law enforcement priority.... In a recent poll, 91 per cent of Canadians identified organized crime as a serious problem.... That's why the government has been working in close cooperation with the police and the provinces over the last four years, taking a number of steps to strengthen the fight against organized crime."

The Hon. Andy Scott, former Solicitor General, Statement to the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, 93rd Annual Conference, 24 August 1998

and a little further on ....

Transnational criminal syndicates are not afraid to work globally in any country where legal or bureaucratic loopholes ALLOW THEM TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE SYSTEM.

http://www.csis-scrs.gc.ca/eng/backgrnd/back10e.html

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"Shortly after 2 a.m. on June 7, [1993] a freighter ran aground on a sand bar just off Queens, N.Y., spilling a human cargo into the cold Atlantic. Ten drowned, 200 others, some dressed in business suits, some in their underwear, were pulled from the water, and 100 more were found huddled on the squalid ship, where they had lived under wretched conditions for three months. The GOLDEN VENTURE -- a ship, incidentally, which had earlier VISITED VANCOUVER'S HARBOUR WITHOUT ATTRACTING NOTICE -- convinced the U.S. government that the human smuggling racket was both dangerous to the immigrants and a threat to the nation's stability. Within months of the Golden Venture incident, the Clinton Administration passed anti-alien-smuggling legislation, speeded up deportation hearings, stopped granting political asylum to those who said they were fleeing China because of its restrictive family planning laws, and had law enforcement agencies target organized crime associated with smuggling.

WITHIN MONTHS, Kwok Ling-kay, the leader of Fuk Ching, one of New York's most powerful gangs, had been EXTRADITED from his base in China's Fujian province to face charges of organizing a human-smuggling ring. The crackdown curtailed smuggling directly to the U.S. -- but it also resulted in a shift to Canada and Mexico as the favoured points of entry. U.S. officials now say B.C. is the sole entry point for thousands of illegal Chinese entering their country from Canada every year." (National Post, <excerpted> September 16, 1999)

Canadian police officials are beginning to see more Chinese illegal aliens choosing Canada over the United States. 'A significant amount, maybe as much as half of those who begin to work their way across to New York, are staying in Canada,' Jim Fisher of the RCMP's Criminal Intelligence Service Canada said yesterday. Fisher, the national co-ordinator for Asian organized crime intelligence, noted that Toronto's Fujianese Chinese community has grown from 'practically nothing to about 8,000 in the past five to seven years.'" (Toronto Star, July 22, 1999)

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Asia Week review of Forbidden Workers: Illegal Chinese Immigrants and American Labor, by Peter Kwong, chairman of the Asian American Studies program at Hunter College in New York

"Ethnic solidarity, the vaunted ties that helped the Chinese diaspora prosper wherever its members settled, have no place in the world Kwong describes. The exploiters are mainly Chinese - from the corrupt mainland officials selling visas to the low-wage employers in America to the 'community leaders' who wave the Chinese banner as a way of isolating these forbidden workers from whatever help they might find in the U.S. The slave trade is alive today." (Asia Week June 19, 1998)

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"In the 1980's and 1990's the rise of big money in Hong Kong, Taipei, Bangkok, and Singapore has brought some of America's tongs under the influence of drug-rich Asian racketeers. Tongs (the less-visible triads) typically occupy a role as community service organizations and the protectors of Chinatown business interests, but this sometimes simply provides cover for protection rackets. U.S. narcotics investigators identified the Luen Kung Lok Triad, for instance, as a major supplier of heroin to New York in the 1980's, the drugs distributed from an eleven-story building on Mott Street in Chinatown. Chinese gangs have largely displaced the Cosa Nostra in the U.S. heroin trade. In the 1990's more than 70 percent of the heroin reaching the East Coast is China White from the Golden Triangle.

New York is awash with Chinese illegals, brought in by plane, truck, and ship - people who have paid from $15,000 to $35,000 per person to triads and syndicates that operate a worldwide traffic in humans, stolen cars, and drugs. In 1992 more than 100,000 Chinese were smuggled into the U.S., most of them ending up in New York City, where they provide labor for sweatshops, slumlords, and gang bosses. The major syndicates have tramp steamers plying the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans on perpetual smuggling operations. They carry heroin to Antwerp and live bodies to Long Island, and then go back to Asia loaded with stolen BMW's, Mercedes, Cadillacs and Porsches, which are smuggled into South China and sold to the nouveaux riche. The bosses of these smuggling networks are wealthy Overseas Chinese businessmen based in regional drug centers like Mae Sai, in Thailand. On the surface they may be involved in hotels, banks, tourism, and manufacturing but they put their disposable income into trawlers and tramp steamers, which are operated for them by street tough lieutenants called snakeheads."

(Lords of the Rim, Sterling Seagrave. pg 275)

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Autumn in New York may be inviting to most visitors to the city, but the approach of winter is ominous for the transients inhabiting a fourth-floor walk-up on the Bowery. In the heat of summer, a few at least are able to sleep on the fire escapes and the roof of the building--avoiding for a moment the circle of hell they have been assigned. The cramped and airless space within is subdivided into 32 cubicles doled out to at least 100 men. The stink of sweat, unwashed clothing, old shoes and garbage suffuses the narrow makeshift corridors. Cooking noises mingle with the gurgle of kitchen-side urinals. On tiny TV sets, a few men watch home videos of kin and country long left behind, for some as much as a decade ago. Others stare at the distant passion of porn tapes smuggled in from the old homeland. Each night the sounds of aching and loneliness drift down to the streets of Chinatown.

The Bowery warren is just one of scores set up to house illegal immigrants from China, men and women smuggled in to work in the teeming sweatshops and restaurants of New York City's many Chinatowns. "Here we live like pigs and eat like dogs," says Son Li, 66, who arrived four years ago and works 12-hr. shifts seven days a week as a clothes hanger in a sweatshop on Lafayette Street, a few blocks away from the Bowery barracks. He says he makes about $1 an hour, when his employer pays. He has paid dearly for the privilege of working in America.

Most of the illegals have forked over as much as $48,000 each to gangsters in order to get to America. They are part of a wave from China's coastal Fujian province; no one knows what their real numbers are. Every now and then a boat stuffed with human cargo will wash up on a beachfront community. But many other landings go undetected. Police estimate there are 300 gang-run safe houses where illegals live as they prepare to enter the workplace. New York City's Fujian association estimates there are 500,000 illegals from the province in the U.S.; the CIA puts the undocumented influx at 100,000 a year. (In comparison, the 1990 U.S. Census estimates there are 2.3 million American residents of Chinese origin.) What is certain is that for reasons both global and local, the illegals, their transporters and their employers are forgoing the boomtowns of the West Coast and homing in on New York City.

There are two reasons that New York has turned into a magnet for Chinese illegals: first, the COLLAPSE OF LABOR-LAW ENFORCEMENT in the city; and second, a frantic attempt by the area's garment industry to remain competitive with Third World rivals. The garment industry has always been the heart of Chinatown's economy. More than 400 garment sweatshops, often situated in hidden lofts and garrets, turn out clothes for most of the nation's major retailers. Wing Lam, head of the Chinese Staff and Workers Association, admits that Chinatown has always been a haven for illegals and sweatshops, but he says things have taken a very bad turn. "The West Coast has better wages, and the living conditions are better," he says. "But the labor laws there are enforced more strictly. The immigrants come to New York because it is lawless. The 1986 IMMIGRATION ACT MADE EMPLOYERS RESPONSIBLE for hiring undocumented aliens, CEDING THE NEW YORK GARMENT INDUSTRY TO THE CRIMINALS who take advantage of illegals too afraid or unable to complain."

[nb] - Canada has consistently done the same with our alien interdiction process, asking airline billing agents to "look out" for false documents.

Today, he says, it is common for sweatshops to withhold eight weeks' pay from workers who have no government agency to turn to for help. Says Lam: "Those few who do complain find that an agreement of understanding between the Labor Department and the Immigration and Naturalization Service means that anyone who complains about wages or working conditions will be deported. It has created a plantation system where bosses can do virtually anything to workers without fear of penalty."

Manufacturers contend they must find ways of going around the law in order to meet the demands of retailers who place the orders. Says Kenny Lee, head of an apparel association: "Five years ago, manufacturers would pay $4 to have a shirt that sold for $24 manufactured. Today they offer half, and if you don't take it, someone else will. There are no more big orders of thousands of garments. Those now go overseas. Instead, we get 'rescue orders,' clothes that must be in the stores in a few days, often no more than 200 pieces. It is not enough to survive on, but we have no choice. All New York has left is turnaround time." As a result, says Lam, "Garment shops will no longer hire documented workers because employers find they can pay undocumented workers less and not fear complaints. Besides, they know these people have to work." New York's sweatshops are often small, nonunion operations with fewer than 20 sewing machines and manned almost exclusively with illegal aliens in Chinese enclaves like Sunset Park in Brooklyn or Flushing, Queens. According to Lam, a recent Department of Labor study found that 90% OF THE GARMENT SHOPS IN CHINATOWN WERE IN REALITY SWEATSHOPS. MOST OF THE SHOPS IN NEW YORK, ABOUT 70%, according to Lee, ARE OWNED BY ETHNIC CHINESE; and 40% of their products go to two major buyers: Wal-Mart and K Mart. Virtually all pay by piece rate, and only a handful of workers are able to produce enough to approach the minimum wage of $5.15 an hour. For most, "the pay has dropped to $2 an hour or less. Work laws are no longer enforced, and crippling injuries have soared," says Peter Kwong, [see above item] a professor who studies Chinatown.

In fact, these workers are lucky to get wages at all. Says Kwong: "Employers know that the workers can't complain, so they withhold wages, claiming manufacturers were slow to pay. It has become standard practice to withhold six weeks' pay or more." The vast numbers of new arrivals have depressed wages throughout Chinatown 30% in the past five years. Dishwashing jobs, for instance, which once paid $800 a month, now pay $500.

Most of the illegals are from rural districts where jobs are limited, and the temptations of China's already crowded cities--and America's streets of gold--are impossible to resist. They aren't prepared for the harshness of the life they find in New York City, according to Yung Fong Chan, a clergyman whose church serves the Fujianese immigrants. "Mental illness and suicide have both become serious problems," he says. "People, isolated from their families and forced to endure hardship they never imagined, just snap." Then there is the constant pressure from the gangs who brought them over and continue to SEE THE IMMIGRANTS AS BETTER GUARANTEES OF MEAL TICKETS THAN THEIR OLD HEROIN TRADE. TWICE IN THE PAST YEAR, GANG MEMBERS SURROUNDED THE BOWERY QUARTERS, BLOCKED THE FIRE ESCAPES, THEN CALMLY ROBBED THE RESIDENTS OF THEIR SAVINGS. THE VICTIMS DIDN'T COMPLAIN, THEY SAID, BECAUSE THEY FEARED RETALIATION AGAINST THEIR FAMILIES IN CHINA IF THEY CAUSED TROUBLE FOR THE GANGS. Says one: "We have no one to protect us. There is nothing we can do. We may as well be slaves."

Government action has been minimal. In the past five years only a handful of sweatshop owners has been prosecuted for failing to pay workers. The government failure has created an even more lawless enclave. Local cops say that AS THE IMMIGRANTS BECOME MORE DESPERATE FOR MONEY, THEY OFTEN TURN TO CRIME. According to Tommy Ong of the New York police intelligence division, the sleazy employment agencies under the Manhattan Bridge that specialize in placing illegal immigrants in jobs around the country often misrepresent and oversell the type of work available. WHEN WORKERS RETURN AND CAN'T PAY OFF THEIR IMMIGRATION DEBT, THE GANGSTERS (OR "SNAKEHEADS") OFFER THEM A DEAL. THE ILLEGALS DESCRIBE THEIR EX-EMPLOYER'S OPERATION AND RETURN WITH SHOTGUNS AND MASKS TO ROB THE PLACE WITH MEMBERS OF THE GANG. The debt is then canceled. "Local police are usually stumped, but we know exactly what happens," says Ong. "IT HAS BECOME A NATIONWIDE PROBLEM."

Each tale is one of heartbreak. Yu Li says she cried for nearly a year after she was brought over to find a better life. She paid gangsters to get out of China three years ago to join her husband, who had illegally entered the U.S. in 1991. She paid the snakeheads money her husband had borrowed and sent over. Almost immediately after reaching New York, she began working 17-hr. days, seven days a week, at a local garment factory. But because she was new and the factory paid piece rate, she made only $1 an hour. "Sometimes we had nothing for ourselves. I made less than $100 a week." She and her husband made so little money they couldn't afford to live together. He continued to sleep on the floor of the restaurant that employed him. She slept in a basement owned by relatives. Her husband would ask angrily, "Why don't you work harder?" "But," says Yu, "I couldn't work any harder."

Yet the couple again dealt with the snakeheads in order to be reunited with the three children they left behind. The price: $132,000. It was a harrowing journey. Their 14-year-old son was separated from his sisters shortly after the journey began, abandoned in Cambodia when war broke out and stuck in a Vietnam jail until he bribed his way out with $500 he had stashed away. Relatives helped pay off the snakeheads, but each month Yu has to pay $3,000 on the debt. "It is hard. We have nothing." NOW THEY HAVE FETTERED THEIR CHILDREN TO THEIR FATE. "The hardest thing," she says, "is that I have had to make the children work. They should be in school, but we need the money they bring home." She sighs. "It was never this hard in China."

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Earlier this year four Chinese women were taken to hospital suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning after they were found hidden under a truck crossing into New York State at Niagara Falls. They reportedly paid $2,000 for the precarious transportation. Another migrant was killed by a train while trying to cross the border at night. Others have drowned trying to cross the St. Lawrence River under cover of darkness. 'The organizations who are running these smuggling routes are putting these (people) at great risk,' said Sgt. Bill MacDonald of the RCMP immigration section in Ottawa. The journey from China to the sweat shops of New York City is 'fraught with peril,' he said. Three of the four boats that arrived off the B.C. coast this summer were so dilapidated, authorities considered them unseaworthy. Some speculate it's just a matter of time before a ship goes down -- if it hasn't happened already. But illegal migration to North America is an industry worth up to $4 billion US a year, according to 1996 figures from the American Centre for the Study of Asian Enterprise Crime. (Canadian Press, Sunday, September 19, 1999)

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Like a drippy faucet, the professional apoligist provides steady, irritating background noise: "600 desperate people washing up on our shores? So what? We won't have to have you investigated will we?"

"Every month, an average of 500 refugee claimants arrive at Pearson Airport." (Toronto Star, September 17, 1999)

GUESS WHAT? It is equally (MORE) galling when bogus refugees playing the system arrive first class

GET OVER IT These people freely contracted with a criminal organization to sneak into Doormatia. In risk assessment terms - criminals who sneak in are not good prospects.

At the same time, geedy queue jumpers elbow aside people who (foolishly) pinned their hopes on being rewarded for doing it the right way. Indulging them sends a dangerous message to all concerned. On the other hand, imagine the howls of protest if Canada started willy-nilly - admitting people who were equipped to make a contribution without the long years of "ushering"? What on earth would become of Canada's immigration industry?

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"Consideration is being given to an eventual change in legislation so that the refugee’s 'ability to establish' in Canada will no longer be a determining criteria for selection." UNHCR, Refugee Resettlement Programs: Canada Report, March 1999 http://www.unhcr.ch/resettle/progscan.htm

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While "Immigration officials deny the boatloads have delayed normal immigration procedures [try telling that to Australian Sally Piccinato]. ... Piccinato first came to Canada in 1995 on a teacher-exchange program. She fell in love with the country, came back for Christmas in 1996 and was offered a job as principal at a gifted-children's high school. A work visa was granted. Piccinato decided to apply for landed-immigrant status and began running the bureaucratic rodent-wheel. She read all the fine print and followed the process precisely to avoid delays. ... But all that changed when the first boat of Chinese migrants was spotted in July. And it changed again when the second and third and fourth ships brought, in total, almost 600. ... 'The man at immigration said, 'You come from a safe country, you have a job to go to. These Chinese don't have that luxury.' ... Piccinato's visa expires Oct. 1. 'I can't work here until I have [another] work visa, and I can't take job offers because I can't have a work visa without a job,' she said. Without immigration's rubber stamp, Piccinato is jobless, soon penniless and living in her mortgaged house with two teenagers. 'I'm sitting in this house poor as a church mouse and these boat people are being given free accommodation, free food and refugee status,' she said. ... 'My application is legal, theirs are illegal.'" (Vancouver Province, September 19, 1999)

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"A local mom is outraged at Immigration Canada because she claims her daughter's husband is being denied legal access to Canada while hundreds of Chinese migrants enter illegally. 'It's wrong,' said Marcy Abrahamson, whose daughter, Sabrina Enzler, 22, married a man from Switzerland in August 1998, and wants him to live in Calgary with her. Currently, Sabrina is in Switzerland with husband Ralph, and is upset because Immigration Canada won't give him a work or immigration visa. 'I'm stuck in a country I don't want to be in,' said Sabrina, who recently graduated from the University of Alberta. Immigration officials in Calgary claimed Sabrina's case should not be a problem. 'When a Canadian citizen marries a person from outside of Canada, they can apply for permanent residence,' said Robert Ferguson, manager of the Calgary office." (Calgary Sun, Tuesday, September 21, 1999)

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Officials say they're spending about $200,000 per week on *EACH* boatload. That figure does not include the cost of police and military personnel involved in capturing them at sea. (CBC Newsworld, September 12, 1999)

VANCOUVER -- An internal auditor's report has found serious deficiencies in virtually every area of the province's Children In Care Program. It found girls placed in homes housing "sexually deviant males," young children sharing homes with teens with behavioral problems, an extraordinary turnover of foster parents and an inability to find enough qualified, trained replacements. The audit says in some cases, unlicensed group homes were run by unskilled staff, employees had criminal backgrounds, even though criminal-record checks are mandatory. Social workers are so overburdened, some had not seen children assigned to them in more than a year. The report says the government is taking in more children every year, but is not providing the resources needed to look after them. The report was completed in April and obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. Children and Families Minister Lois Boone has had no comment yet. (CKNW/AM980 Radio, Friday, Sep 17, 1999)

VICTORIA - Up to 90 extended-care beds are to close at Gorge Road Hospital because of a toxic mould problem. Elderly patients have been shuffled to other extended-care hospitals that are already overloaded. A consultant's report shows the hospital's extended-care unit has a leaking roof. Dampness has caused the mould which when ingested or inhaled can cause irritation to the eyes, nose and throat. It can also trigger lung ailments and has been linked to infant deaths. (National Post, Saturday, September 18, 1999)

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"Public accounts, for the fiscal year which ended on March 31, [that's BEFORE the boats started arriving] show the total provincial debt at $32.018 -BILLION-. That's an increase of about $700 million over the figure one year earlier." (Vancouver Province, Friday, 17 September 1999)

"I'm not very hopeful," Dosanjh said. "She [Caplan] did admit that this is an unprecedented situation in terms of the short space of time within which so many have landed.

"Despite the fact that she recognizes the U N P R E C E D E N T E D nature, she felt that if she assisted us it would create a P R E C E D E N T." (Vancouver Province Sunday 12 September 1999)

Toronto -- Immigration is bringing back a disease to Toronto that was once thought conquered, and the city's Board of Health decided yesterday to seek help from Ottawa to pay for its soaring bill for tuberculosis.

The board agreed to ask Ottawa for assistance after it heard a report that there are 450 to 500 new cases of tuberculosis each year in the city, which amount to 25 per cent of all new cases in the country, and that 90 per cent of these occur in people who were born in countries where TB is endemic.

The board is going to try to meet with federal Immigration and Citizenship Minister Elinor Caplan to ask for help in carrying the heavier burden that the TB cases have imposed on it.

Councillor Anne Johnston told the board that asking the minister for assistance "is a tremendous opportunity to give Elinor Caplan something she can do. It is a tremendous problem."

Although Toronto is increasing its annual budget for fighting to a planned $3.2-million next year from $2-million in 1998, the TB problem has been exacerbated by the recent arrival of a group of Tibetan refugees, Dr. Barbara Yaffe, the board's director of communicable diseases, told the meeting.

Through the first seven months of this year, about 150 Tibetan refugees came to Toronto and another 180 arrived in August. Eight cases of TB have been reported in this group, including five that are multidrug resistant and cost about $250,000 each to treat.

The board has begun screening the Tibetan refugees. Dr. Yaffe said that 18 per cent of the 60 screened have a history of active TB and 92 per cent are skin-test positive, "which means at least that they have inactive TB."

She said that, while the Tibetan community has co-operated with the city in helping deal with the problems of the new arrivals, the board has had to rearrange its priorities to cope with the influx and cannot carry out adequate public-health measures within its current budget.

She estimated that the board needs about $200,000 a year for the next two years to deal with the problems produced by the Tibetan influx and suggested that the board should ask Ottawa for the funding to deal with the costs of refugees influxes from TB-endemic countries. (Globe and Mail, Wednesday, September 22, 1999)

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It's not looking good. After months of listening to immigration officials consistently soft-pedal, down-play and underestimate numbers - they are suddenly warning of 400 in the next few days?

-- 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 - if it ever resumes (a real letter carries more weight than an e-mail)

-- BC residents may wish to ask their MLA what this is costing them? Do you really want to know.

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