(BCTV) - Is Canada's
Department of Immigration trying to cover up the fact that it
almost lost that ship full of Chinese refugees? A News Hour
investigation into last month's dramatic events off Vancouver
Island has learned that despite the fact the ship was spotted and
reported lying off shore, almost a full day went by before
immigration took action. A leaked report, makes no mention of the
delay.
Today, some of the newly-released refugee claimants from that
dilapidated ship celebrated their first day of freedom in Canada
by going shopping. Most of the refugees were released after going
through an interview process. But as Clem Chapple reports, an
official immigration report makes no mention of nearly losing a
suspected smuggling ship.
Clem Chapple, reporting: "July 19, 4:56 p.m., an airborne
fisheries observer photographs a ship well off shore (25 miles off
Estevan Pt.). It is steaming very slowly, but speeds up when the
aircraft, marked Canada, makes a low pass. The incident is
carefully noted by the observer; he calls it a suspected smuggling
ship, it has no flag or markings. Within an hour, he has reported
the incident on land by phone to military intelligence, but three
emergency numbers at Canada Immigration are only answered by voice
mail.
The next day the ship is discovered sixty to seventy miles away
at anchor in Tahsis Inlet by two off-duty American policeman who
arrest a pair of the ship's passengers floating on a makeshift
raft. Only then do Canada's watchmen go into action. The ship had
been allowed to go wherever it wanted since the previous evening,
but its plan for smuggling the passengers into Canada apparently
went wrong.
But a confidential immigration report on the incident
completely ignores the initial contact and the intervening night
and potential for escape. The document talks proudly of operation
"osprey crimson"... as if the first information was "reports that
a potential smuggling ship had been located in Tahsis Inlet" ...
and "how the immigration team members scrambled to reach the
area"...and, "the incident was handed to us on a platter." The
document even claims that "there was no other contact with ships
en route and the smuggling ship was not overflown until it reached
Tahsis," as if the previous day's contact and photographs did not
exist.
The only immigration officer allowed to speak on the topic
claims the RCMP had taken over. Were you slow in reacting?"
Jim Redmond, Immigration Canada: "I'm a little surprised at
that. Our information is that there was a fisheries flyby that
spotted it the evening before. The vessel was steaming at about
two knows, and sped up to ten knots, and went in and dropped its
anchor. The Mounted Police were on it fairly quickly, and my team
was assembled and I had officers up there in the morning, and the
remainder of the team arrived in the early afternoon."
Clem Chapple, reporting: "Immigration got lucky when something
went wrong for the smuggling operation and it was left stranded in
Tahsis Inlet. As one migrant put it: "There is supposed to be
someone leading us somewhere. We are not supposed to be sitting in
the water and be caught like
this"."