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By Randall Palmer
OTTAWA (Reuters) - The arrival of a second boatload of Chinese migrants off British Columbia this week has raised questions about whether Canada's relatively generous refugee policy can, or should, be tightened.
So far the influx has amounted to only a couple of hundred people in the space of a month, a small number in comparison with the 25,000 refugee applicants to Canada each year, but the potential is there for the volume to swell if Canada is seen as an open door.
``Canada is viewed by much of the world as being an easy target,'' Member of Parliament Leon Benoit, of the opposition Reform Party, charged Thursday.
About 130 Chinese were dumped by smugglers into the rough and frigid water near the Queen Charlotte Islands off British Columbia's coast Wednesday and have now been shifted to safety to be processed as potential refugees.
The problem besetting Canada is similar to that facing the United States, Australia, New Zealand and much of Europe -- how to deal with people who might not be political refugees but who simply show up to try for a better economic life.
Refugees fleeing political persecution are allowed to stay while those determined to be illegal economic migrants are sent back -- but only following months or years of hearings and often after tens of thousands of dollars of government money is spent.
And in the case of Canada, the Supreme Court ruled in 1985 that refugee applicants, no matter how dubious their claims, are to enjoy all the benefits of the Constitution's Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
``The people who have arrived recently by boat will be subject to the same rule of law, the same due process, as anyone else who arrives in Canada,'' Citizenship and Immigration Minister Elinor Caplan told a news conference Wednesday.
That process, with all the appeals that are allowed, can drag on for years, during which time most applicants are allowed to work in Canada, potentially earning far more than they could back in China or other countries.
Caplan warned potential migrants of the dangers of coming in leaky boats and declared the human smuggling to be ``an insult to our sovereignty.'' She also told smugglers they would face the full brunt of Canadian law.
The eight crew on the latest vessel, believed to be South Koreans, have been apprehended by Canadian officials, but she was unclear what penalties they might face.
``We are very concerned about this (situation). We want to make sure that Canadian law is respected,'' Caplan said.
She said the Immigration and Refugee Board, which hears the refugee cases, had pledged to shave its average time for making a initial decision on a refugee case to eight months from 11 months.
``Everyone is concerned by undue delay,'' she said.
And she said proposed legislation would detain more people who arrive in Canada claiming refugee status. In current practice, the vast majority are set free -- only 37 of 123 who arrived from China by boat in July are still being held.
The United States has concentrated on trying to cut the legal processing time as much as possible, and it has now denied work permits to applicants, to reduce incentives.
``It sends a strong deterrent message if you can send economic migrants back quickly,'' said Don Mueller, a spokesman for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.
Cutting down on economic incentives is seen especially important given that people pay somewhere between $10,000 and $40,000 a head to boat smugglers.
In the case of Chinese migrants trying to get to the United States via its Pacific territory of Guam, authorities detained them and in some cases diverted them to another U.S. territory in the Marianas, where U.S. immigration law does not apply.
``The vast majority of these folks are economic migrants and they were returned to China within the space of several months,'' Mueller said.
Reform's Benoit said Ottawa could limit the number of appeals that applicants are allowed and could limit their privileges. He also advocated detaining those who arrive under suspicious circumstances, at least until their hearing.
Janet Dench, executive director of the Canadian Council for Refugees, which advocates an open policy, said she did not think there was a crisis, and welcomed Caplan's reassertion that anybody on Canadian soil can make a refugee claim.
``One of the things that are very discouraging is that people seem to be more concerned...with protecting their share of the promised land and erecting barriers to it, rather than reflecting on the fact that there is such desperation in other parts of the world,'' Dench said by phone from Montreal.
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