What Canada Can Do About Boat People

There are ways Canada could help provide people with legitimate routes to apply as refugees to other countries.

People-smuggling is big business. Unscrupulous thugs prey on people’s fears of persecution or desire for a better life. For a charge of up to $45,000 per person (an astronomical sum in countries where people may be making only $2 a day), people get into rickety boats to make a perilous journey across the Pacific Ocean.

This happened when the MV Sun Sea left Sri Lanka months ago to arrive on our shores. The people onboard will be triaged medically, treated at Vancouver General Hospital, and then held in prison to determine if anyone is a security risk. If history is a guide, they will be held for a while and almost all will be a released while the processing continues for months, if not years. This was the case when another group of Sri Lankan boat people arrived on our coast last October. Most are now living in Toronto while their claims are being assessed.

People-smuggling is an international challenge, with Australia, the United States, and Canada being prime destinations. It is also a complicated problem to solve, and no one has found a good solution. In Canada, as in other countries, we must honour our legal obligations while ensuring that our laws cannot be flouted and that we have control over our borders. Canada cannot be a free-for-all entry point for people who want to immigrate. This would be utterly unfair to our taxpayers and to those who are trying to enter Canada by established, legitimate routes.

The people we are seeing on these boats are just the tip of the iceberg, as 90 per cent of people claiming refugee status enter Canada via our airports. Most of the boat people we see are coming from Southeast Asia, many from Sri Lanka. Some are legitimate refugees fleeing persecution; many are economic refugees trying to find a faster way to a better life. The key for us is to separate the two – protect and process the legitimate refugees while sending those who are not refugees back to their country of origin to apply through normal channels.

So what can Canada do? A regional processing centre run by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees should be opened in Sri Lanka. This would give people a legitimate route to apply to other countries as a refugee. This is safer and less costly than getting on a boat.

Once the refugees have been processed, officials from the country of destination (e.g. Canada Immigration officials) can assess them to see whether they meet their country’s standards for refugee status. By providing a way for them to be evaluated closer to home, we will reduce the number of people taking desperate measures to flee by boat and cut down on the expense incurred and the lengthy processing procedures undertaken when they arrive on our shores. Intercepting the boat closer to its disembarkation point may also be an option, but this will require international cooperation. Intercepting the boat on the high seas and turning it around is not an option because the boat will likely not make it back and the people will perish.

Lastly, Immigration Canada should pay the Vancouver Island Health Authority and other local authorities in Victoria for all of the excess costs they will incur in treating and processing these refugee claimants. This is a national problem and the costs should not be borne by local authorities.