Saturday, July 31

PAUL SULLIVAN

Saturday, July 31, 1999

IN VANCOUVER -- The 123 bedraggled, handcuffed illegal Chinese immigrants enjoying the accommodations at CFB Esquimalt while officials decide what to do with them have already made one major contribution to Canada. They've rescued British Columbia from its annual preoccupation with salmon, a story that's about as interesting as the codfish story on that other coast.

As usual, Alaskans and Indians are catching salmon while everyone else sits on the shore and stews. But this summer, the ocean has yielded a peculiar bounty in uninvited guests, and everyone wants to know just what they think they're doing.

Why would anyone travel 38 days locked in the cargo hold of a filthy, leaky, rusted old freighter just to be arrested and sent back to an uncertain fate in Fujian province, Peoples' Republic of China -- unless they knew all along that would never happen?

No, instead of putting them on the next plane to Hong Kong or someplace, good old Canada has taken them ashore, provided them with a gaggle (a pride? a billable brace?) of lawyers and sent out for Chinese food from Ming's, all at public expense, as their refugee claims are processed. They're not even grateful, staging a brief hunger strike apparently in protest against the quality of Ming's noodles.

If it goes the way these things normally go, their desperate gamble will pay off. Most will be found eligible for a refugee hearing and released. Then if they're anything like 70.8 per cent of illegal Chinese immigrants, they will fail to show up at their hearing. But from there, it's not exactly the Joy Luck Club. They have no choice but to go underground and become virtual slaves to work off the price of their ticket to the Free World -- as high as $50,000.

As you might expect, the boat people are just as big or bigger in the local and national Chinese media as they are in the Vancouver Province. The Province set the tone for this sort of thing back in 1914, when 374 Indians, most of them Sikhs, set sail from Hong Kong on the Komagata Maru. "Boat Loads of Hindus on Way to Vancouver," read the headline.

The story of the current band of illegals was still dominating the front page of the western edition of Ming Pao Daily on Wednesday. It warranted seven stories and two full colour photos a full week and a day after the boat people threw themselves on the mercy of the Coast Guard.

On a popular daily talk show on Fairchild Radio, calls have been running firmly in favour of "repatriating" them with dispatch. Apparently blatant queue-jumping seems just as unfair to recent Chinese immigrants as it does to most other Canadians. But the callers are also worried that if we let the boat folks stay in the World's Best Country (third year running -- The UN) it will only encourage more illegal-people smuggling.

And here's one even the right-wing press won't dare to run up the flagpole: Many callers argue that the refugee process is overly humanitarian and the government is wasting too much money on illegal immigrants.

Hold on there, argues high-profile Ming Pao columnist Aaron Chu, who is appalled by this widespread hard-heartedness, or at least hard-headedness. He wonders if these callers really understand the essence of what it is to be Canadian. A real Canadian, he argues, takes a rather humanitarian approach to people of different ethnic origins.

Oh. More than a few real Canadians can't wait to summarily convict the Esquimalt 123.

However, T.N. Foo of S.U.C.C.E.S.S., the Vancouver Chinese immigrant agency, points out that there are genuine refugees in China who, for political reasons, aren't able to make it to a Canadian embassy. Their only recourse is to risk their lives, their fortunes and their freedom to escape. Still, he emphasizes in his best Canadian way, all illegal refugees should be treated equally and rationally and lawfully.

Of course, nobody likes a sneak, regardless of race, colour or creed. There are thousands of legitimate refugees living in execrable conditions around the world who have applied to enter Canada and don't have a prayer. Part of the blame must go to illegitimate refugees who take their places, clog up the system and harden the hearts of Real Canadians to the plight of those, who by choice or by circumstance, are called refugees.

Still, it might do to remember the Komagata Maru. After it was turned back, it was forced to land in Calcutta, a skirmish broke out and 20 passengers were shot dead by British police. By illegally exiting China, the Esquimalt 123 have become people without a country, their only state a state of peril. Sending them back is not a Real Canadian thing to do, whether we like it or not.

Paul Sullivan is a Vancouver writer and consultant.