Monday, Sep 13

JANE ARMSTRONG and SHAWN McCARTHY
The Globe and Mail
Monday, September 13, 1999

Vancouver and Auckland, N.Z. -- JANE ARMSTRONG
in Vancouver
SHAWN McCARTHY
in Auckland, N.Z.

The RCMP, embroiled in dealing with the migrant crisis on the West Coast, has decided that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

RCMP spokesman Corporal Grant Learned said yesterday it would make more sense to deploy half a dozen investigators in China in a bid to prevent the boats from leaving Fujian province than to assign hundreds of officers to guard and investigate the migrants' stories once they land.

Four illegal boats have been intercepted by Canadian authorities off the West Coast since July. All were from Fujian province and police believe all are connected to a smuggling ring run by organized crime.

About 100 RCMP officers are now at Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt on Vancouver Island, where many boat people are still detained, working exclusively on migrant detail. Some immigration and passport division officers were already stationed there, but dozens have been seconded from other units, such as commercial crime and drugs.

What began as a temporary operation has become permanent, Cpl. Learned said.

"Here we are, 50-some days later," he said. "It has all the earmarks of something that is not going to go away. It is an increasing burden of all our resources."

Meanwhile, the idea of sending RCMP officers to China has been broached between Canadian and Chinese leaders meeting at the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit in Auckland.

Prime Minister Jean Chrétien met yesterday with Chinese President Jiang Zemin and later told reporters he raised the problem of illegal immigrants. Mr. Jiang told Mr. Chrétien that Chinese authorities will co-operate with Canadian police in trying to stem the tide.

"I told him we needed collaboration because they could hopefully stop the departure of the ships from the coast of China that are coming to our coast. And he recognized that," Mr. Chrétien said.

"The President said he is willing to collaborate with us and we're looking at the possibility of sending some RCMP representatives to mainland China to try to deal with the problem."

RCMP in British Columbia agree another tack must be taken to stem the flow of boat people. In addition to the 100 officers assigned to secure and interview them, the Chinese migrants have generated other work for police, such as issuing Canada-wide warrants for 32 migrants who have failed to appear for hearings and assigning an investigator to look into allegations that police mistreated some of the migrants.

"You can see how this mushrooms," Cpl. Learned said. "It's sucking a lot of our resources."

Meanwhile, Citizenship and Immigration officials yesterday began interviewing the migrants from the latest ship, which the Canadian navy intercepted off Vancouver Island on Thursday. The ship contained 146 people, including 121 men, 11 women and 14 youngsters under the age of 17. The latest ship brings the total number of boat people known to have arrived on Canada's shores to almost 600.

There have been reports that yet more ships are on the way, but Immigration and Canadian Forces officials say they aren't tracking a specific vessel at this time. However, authorities said they would not be surprised if more showed up.

"I think it's a possibility," said Lieutenant-Commander Christopher Henderson, a Canadian Forces spokesman. "The weather is still good. It would not be surprising."

The boat people have stirred anti-immigration sentiments on the West Coast.

However, in Auckland, Mr. Chrétien defended Canada's refugee laws, saying it is up to China, in co-operation with the RCMP, to halt the flood of migrants across the Pacific.

Earlier in the week, Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan complained to Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy that Canada's refugee system encourages illegal migrants because they can remain in the country for months, or even years, through the appeal process.

Mr. Axworthy said he passed that complaint along to Immigration Minister Elinor Caplan and suggested the Liberal government could review that process.

But the Prime Minister rejected suggestions that Canada's refugee law must be changed to deter people from arriving in Canada.

"The problem is, of course, that we have laws that induce some people to abuse the law but Canada is a generous country and we have had this situation for a long time," he said. "But it is a law we have had for a long time and we are not about to return the people without hearing what they have to say."

He noted that the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that a refugee claimant is entitled to a fair hearing and an appeal.

Canada and China signed an agreement in April that allows the two countries to co-operate on criminal investigations, and explicitly mentions human smuggling as a criminal activity.

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