Friday, August 13, 1999

Robert Remington in Port Hardy Chris Wattie in Toronto and Stewart Bell in Vancouver
National Post, with files from Reuters, The Canadian Press

Nick Didlick, the Vancouver Sun Migrants peer out from the fantail of the Canadian Coast Guard ship Tanu as it enters Port Hardy, B.C., yesterday.

A group of Chinese migrants arrived on Vancouver Island yesterday after a 10-hour sea voyage from the barren, isolated beach where they swam ashore after being forced into the ocean by the crew of the unregistered vessel that carried them across the Pacific.

Hundreds of residents in Port Hardy lined police barricades to catch a glimpse of the men, women and children as young as four as they were hustled off the Coast Guard vessels Tanu and Arrow Post, which had ferried them from the isolated island in the Queen Charlotte chain where they were found huddled on a rocky beach on Wednesday morning.

Once they had disembarked from the Coast Guard vessels, officials from the Citizenship and Immigration Department herded the group on to school buses for the trip to Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt, near Victoria.

"Right now our priority has been to organize such a large group of people in a fairly remote area and get them to the place where they will be housed and sheltered," said Lois Reimer, a spokeswoman for the department.

The smugglers' boat, a former fishing vessel believed to be from South Korea, was seized by Canada several hours after it dropped off the immigrants and made a dash for international waters, officials said.

Authorities do not know the boat's exact origin or intended destination on the Canadian coast.

Resident Jerry Higginson, a logger, stood on a shoreline rock and played a shaky version of O Canada on his trumpet as the migrants were led on to the buses. As they filed off the Coast Guard vessel wrapped in red blankets, some waved and smiled. Others looked glum.

"These people aren't criminals," Mr. Higginson said after the migrants drove off. "We've got the greatest country in the world: You can't blame them for wanting to be here."

The immigrants spent several hours in the Coast Guard ships docked at Port Hardy as RCMP searched them and immigration officials interviewed them.

Some of the men were in plastic handcuffs.

One man had to be airlifted to Queen Charlotte City for treatment for severe hypothermia where he was listed in stable condition.

Searchers found another four immigrants wandering the dense woods of the island hours after their compatriots were rescued from the windswept beach.

Micheline Brodeur, a spokesman for the Coast Guard, said the four were picked up early yesterday and appeared to be looking for a highway. RCMP officers said they were confident that all of the illegal immigrants were now accounted for.

The crew of the vessel that brought the group from China and then dumped them off in the ocean, forcing them to swim to shore in icy waters, had apparently assured them there was a road. But the island is among the most remote of the isolated Queen Charlotte chain and has only a handful of rough paths.

RCMP Constable Tracey Rook said the eight crew members of the migrants' ship, who were arrested after they tried to elude Canadian authorities by speeding their vessel back to international waters, were taken to the RCMP detachment at Port Hardy.

Const. Rook said the crew members have been charged under the Immigration Act with aiding and abetting a party of 10 or more people to illegally enter the country. They were also charged with causing a person to disembark at sea.

Guilty parties face fines of $500,000 or 10 years in jail.

"They will be held in the cells at Port Hardy for the time being," she said.

The group is believed to be from Fujian, a province on the southeast coast of China, which is the same point of origin as a boatload of 123 migrants who washed ashore on Vancouver Island last month.

The two groups of migrants have prompted heated debate about Canada's immigration and refugee laws.

All the members of the first group have claimed refugee status. Most are living in Vancouver and Victoria and are awaiting refugee hearings.

Thirty-seven have been jailed, mainly those suspected of belonging to the smuggling ring that brought them to Canada.

Among the local residents awaiting the arrival of the latest immigrants were four native women wearing placards stating: Feed our People First and Save Canadians First.

"It is hard to say what their circumstances are. If they're being persecuted, we've got land and resources," said Ruth McDonough.

Canadian and U.S. authorities have been on the alert in recent months for boat people from Asia, following accounts of several landings in Australia - which has since toughened its immigration laws.

Authorities believe most of the smuggling is being run by Asian crime gangs, who sometimes charge the immigrants more than $40,000 to make the weeks-long journey crammed into the holds of dilapidated vessels.

Yesterday, officials contradicted one another over how much prior knowledge they had about the second boat.

Military officials said they were acting on a specific tip-off but Immigration officials said they received no advance warning that the second vessel would be arriving.

RELATED SITES:

(Each link opens a new window)

Citizenship and Immigration Canada

The brand-new white paper on immigration policy

Statistics Canada: Immigration and Citizenship

Statistics from the 1996 national census that look at where Canadians came from.