Thursday, October 07,
1999 Lurking refugee
rhetoric
Ian Hunter
Although he took a while to find his voice, Reform Leader Preston
Manning was the only Canadian politician to offer a constructive
proposal for dealing with the boatloads of Chinese migrants who have
washed up on Canada's West Coast. Mr. Manning proposed a policy of
automatic detention, followed by a fair but expeditious (within
seven days) hearing designed to sort out genuine refugees from
opportunistic queue-jumpers. Many Canadians will think his proposal
too little, too late, but if you want to know why other politicians
kept silent, consider this reaction to Mr. Manning's suggestions.
In the current issue of Law Times, Professor Dianne Martin of
Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto writes: "I suspect this is
intended to guarantee no refugees will ever be accepted, while
appealing to the lurking thug in each of us. The part of humanity
that takes part in lynchings and supports ideas like slavery and
apartheid."
In contrast to the silence from the Liberal government, the
leader of the Opposition makes a modest, eminently sensible proposal
to expedite the determination of refugee claims, and for this he is
accused of appealing to lurking thuggery and wanting to bring back
lynch mobs, slavery and apartheid. Ah, how refreshing to hear the
calm, dispassionate voice of the academy.
Had Preston Manning made comments half as inflammatory as Ms.
Martin's he would by now have had a visit from the "official
straighteners" (C. S. Lewis' term) at the Canadian Human Rights
Commission. Indeed, he might well be facing criminal prosecution for
"hate crimes." But Mr. Manning is white, male, and a Western
politician; therefore neither the protections of the law nor the
canons of civilized discourse apply to him.
Ad hominem aside, Ms. Martin advances two arguments, both of them
spurious.
First, she disputes that anyone can possibly know that these
recent arrivals are illegal, since no judicial determination of
their status has yet been made. To say otherwise is "prejudging"
and, according to Ms. Martin, "a civilized country, governed under
law, does not prejudge."
No, other civilized countries (the United States, for example, or
Australia) send naval gunboats into international waters to turn
back the rusting hulks before they ever reach their shores. But
perhaps, according to Ms. Martin's frenzied ideology, the United
States and Australia are not "civilized countries"? It would be
interesting to know exactly which countries qualify for Ms. Martin's
encomium. In any case, her point is meaningless because Mr. Manning
did not propose "prejudging" but rather "expeditious judging," and
surely there is sufficient difference between those two positions to
be recognized even at Osgoode Hall.
Although Ms. Martin asserts that we are all know-nothings about
the legality of the migrants, we do know something conclusively: We
know "absolutely and without any doubt that injustice is done when
bureaucratic processing is used to replace due process."
Whatever can she mean? Was it bureaucratic processing to herd the
new arrivals to an army base? Was it bureaucratic processing to
interview them, to try to separate the (perhaps blameless) dupes
from the controlling minds (the "snakeheads") of international
people-smuggling? I have seen no evidence of bureaucratic injustice,
and if Ms. Martin is doing more than blowing smoke perhaps she will
bring the evidence of bureaucratic injustice to the attention of the
authorities.
Second, Ms. Martin complains there has been no reporting about
the real villains -- "namely the entrepreneurs who will employ them
illegally to great profit and the consumers who will use and
purchase the products of their indentured labour." No problem
pre-judging prospective future employers without due process. After
all, these are capitalists who will seek to turn a profit; and then,
of course, we are all guilty because as consumers "we receive the
benefits of their misery."
Mr. Manning objects to migrants who bypass Canada's immigration
laws and this is thuggery. The running dogs of capitalism, who may
eventually give these people jobs, are the true villains. And we
voracious consumers who keep the capitalist Moloch devouring the
indigent are not blameless.
After the collapse of the Berlin Wall it used to be said that one
could no longer find a Marxist anywhere in the Soviet Union. But
Marxist rhetoric survives at Osgoode Hall. Law students of the world
unite! You have nothing to lose but your reason!
Ian Hunter is professor emeritus in the faculty of law at the
University of Western Ontario. |
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