Monday, September 13,
1999 China and Canada will co-operate to
stop 'snakeheads' Chretien defends
policies: China's president upset over leniency on B.C.
migrants
Sheldon Alberts National
Post
Chuck Stoody, The Canadian
Press Two illegal migrants housed
at CFB Esquimalt make their way to portable toilets at the
compound on
Saturday.
| AUCKLAND, New
Zealand - Jean Chretien, the Prime Minister, defended Canada's
refugee system yesterday after Chinese officials complained it was
responsible for the flood of illegal migrants washing up in British
Columbia.
Following a meeting with the Chinese president, Mr. Chretien said
he is happy with Canada's immigration laws even though they are
sometimes abused by foreign citizens without legitimate asylum
claims.
"The problem is, of course, we have laws that induce some people
to abuse of the law, but Canada is a generous country and we have
had this situation since a long time," the prime minister said after
a private chat with Jiang Zemin at the Asia-Pacific Economic
Co-operation conference.
The two leaders agreed to implement a recently signed agreement
allowing Chinese and Canadian police to co-operate in investigations
surrounding so-called "snakehead" crime gangs which have been
smuggling illegal migrants in ships from Fujian province to British
Columbia.
Since July, at least four ships carrying 600 illegal migrants
have dumped their human cargo on the coast of British Columbia,
sparking widespread criticism of Canadian immigration and refugee
laws.
The latest ship, carrying 146 migrants, arrived on Friday at the
CFB Esquimalt naval base. Initial examinations were being conducted
this weekend by immigration officials. Barbed-wire perimeter fencing
was being installed around a playing field at the base, as the
military struggled to house the growing number of boat people.
Immigration officials said yesterday they were not tracking any
more incoming ships.
Under terms of a Canada-China agreement signed last spring, RCMP
officers plan to travel to Fujian province to work with the Chinese
public security bureau in an attempt to identify the smugglers and
stop the ships before they leave.
But during meetings at the APEC conference with Lloyd Axworthy,
the Foreign Affairs Minister, Chinese officials said Canada should
simply ship the migrants back to China.
The Chinese minister "was quite vociferous in his case that the
slow processing of deportees from Canada in fact was an incentive
for people to be sent here because they clearly thought they would
be able to stay in Canada for longer periods of time," Mr. Axworthy
said.
But Mr. Chretien dismissed the criticisms, and fired his own back
at the Chinese, who he said are embarrassed that their citizens want
to flee the country.
"Of course any government tends to be offended when somebody says
that he is not treated normally in his country, because you need a
reason to remain as refugees. So any country don't like their
citizens to become refugees for political reasons in another
country," he said.
"But it is the law we have had in Canada for a long time and I
think we are not about to just return the people without hearing
what they have to say."
He rejected outright the idea of sending the migrants back
without due process, even though refugee claims -- and subsequent
appeals -- often take more than a year to complete.
"If you come by plane, you come by boat, you walk, you swim, when
you are on the ground, you say 'I want to be a refugee' and the law
of Canada applies. But if they don't leave China, they won't come,"
Mr. Chretien said.
Canada's immigration laws have been under steady fire since the
first rusty migrant ship was intercepted on July 20. Elinor Caplan,
the Immigration Minister, is considering expanded measures to detain
people smuggled illegally into Canada. But she says she does not
want to follow the example of the United States, which detains
illegal aliens as a deterrent to false refugee claims.
Two Liberal MPs -- Bill Graham, the chair of the Commons foreign
affairs committee and Sophie Leung, a Vancouver MP -- travelled to
China this weekend and have been asked by Mr. Axworthy to follow up
on the people smuggling issue with senior Chinese officials.
The memorandum of understanding signed between China and Canada
allows the countries to co-operate in crime prevention against
"trans-national organized crime" and "crimes related to border
controls, including illegal immigration and the smuggling of, and
trafficking in, human beings."
Mr. Axworthy said it is particularly important for Canada to
share information with Chinese officials about the location and
identity of the migrants and their smugglers -- because they often
burn their identification before arriving in Canada.
"The Chinese minister agreed that under this memorandum of
co-operation that we could work on that as well. I think we opened
the door and I did speak to Mrs. Caplan today about that. We had
exchanges.
"She thinks this is a good grounds now for her officials to begin
working actively with the Chinese. So I think that there was an
opportunity to develop a more co-operative approach with the Chinese
on this matter."
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.
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