Tuesday, August 31, 1999

Stewart Bell
National Post

Another ship suspected of carrying illegal migrants to Canada has been spotted off the coast of British Columbia.

A Canadian Forces Aurora aircraft sighted the vessel yesterday afternoon during a routine surveillance patrol, but Major Colin Goodman would not confirm whether there are passengers aboard. "For the safety of [our] personnel and those on board the vessel, no details of the ship's movements or our response to it will be released," he said in a telephone interview from Victoria.

Maj. Goodman did say that RCMP and Citizenship and Immigration Canada emergency response teams have been dispatched to northern Vancouver Island to deal with what he called "a possible migrant smuggling ship nearing Canadian waters."

Also yesterday, United States authorities confirmed that another ship was found drifting in the mid-Pacific and Chinese migrants on board the freighter told U.S. immigration officials they were headed for British Columbia when their ship broke down.

The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service said although the 75 migrants now being detained on Midway Island had not yet been thoroughly interviewed, some had named their destination as Canada.

"We've heard two different versions, and ... one was Canada and the other was the U.S.," Don Mueller, a spokesman for U.S. immigration, said yesterday.

The 50-metre vessel was the latest known smuggling ship to set sail from China this summer with the intention of ferrying illegal migrants to Canada. Two others made it to the West Coast and one was intercepted by the U.S. Coast Guard.

The broken-down vessel had set sail in June, but ran into mechanical trouble in July and drifted for 30 days before the U.S. Coast Guard picked up a distress call last week. A spotter plane found it last Wednesday and it was towed to Midway.

The passengers are being treated for dehydration and malnutrition. "We're in the process right now with the public health service of doing screenings, then we'll start doing interviews," Mr. Mueller said.

While it is not clear where the ship originated, Mr. Mueller said it had Chinese identification. A likely bet is China's Fujian province, where the two ships to reach Canada this summer began their journey. "It's certainly possible, and prior to this we had five boats that were interdicted in April and May that we took to the island Tinian, and those all turned out to be from Fujian province," he said.

China's coastal Fujian province has experienced a boom in illegal emigration this year, fuelled by the longing for a better life in the West and by the rise of organized crime figures known as "snakeheads," who exact huge fees for ferrying migrants to North America by air and sea.

A ship carrying 123 migrants turned up June 20 in Nootka Sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island. On Aug. 11, a second vessel dropped 132 passengers on the Queen Charlotte Islands before leading Canadian military and police on a chase into international waters.

All the passengers have filed refugee claims, although Canadian immigration officials have said those aboard the second boat were mostly economic migrants, seeking better jobs rather than fleeing persecution.

The nine Koreans who piloted the second ship are facing charges, and charges are also expected against the captain and crew of the first vessel. Others among the group have been identified as "enforcers" sent to make sure the migrants paid off their debts to the smugglers.

Janice Harper, a spokeswoman for Citizenship and Immigration Canada, said the U.S. government had not advised Canada that the ship picked up last week was destined for Canada. She said Canada was currently not tracking any more boats believed to be headed for the B.C. coast.

Mr. Mueller said conditions on board the ship were poor.

"In addition to being adrift they were, from what I understand, short on food and water. And the usual scenario is either no lifeboats or one lifeboat that would hold maybe a half-dozen people for an entire ship full of migrants; so it was, from my understanding, not a very pleasant situation."

Officials suspect Chinese migrants are using the B.C. coast as a gateway to the United States, taking advantage of the less stringent refugee system to enter Canada and then slipping south across the border, where they work in sweatshops, restaurants and brothels until their debts to the smugglers are paid off.

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.