The Horns of a Persistent Dilemma

There we go again, the prospect of another unwarranted intrusion into Canada by assumed members of a terrorist group. At the very least sympathizers of a terrorist group. People utterly fixated on their mission to free themselves from the tyranny of a government and a nation where they are denied a geography of their own. The Kurds, the Uyghurs, the Sikhs, the Kashmiris and the Tamils, all restive populations, all resorting to violence in an effort to convince those that govern they are deserving of their own homeland.

Canada suffered its own terrorist attack through the violent activities of militant Sikhs battling India, bringing their 'struggle for independence' to Canada and setting up violence-dedicated groups within this country. And with the largest expatriate Tamil population outside Sri Lanka and India, Canada saw supporters of the Tamil Tigers raise funds to buy arms and support the violence in Sri Lanka through ongoing activities of the Tamil Tigers.

Palestinians and their supporters have brought division and blame and slander into Canada as they spread their own hate-filled propaganda against Israel and Zionism, and blanket Canadian Jews with blame for the failures of successive Palestinian leaders to break with the tradition of violating the peace with Israel in the search for Palestinian sovereignty which continues to hold that Israel's existence is untenable.

Now Canada is once again caught between humanitarian concerns and resistance to becoming yet again a useful perch upon which to prosecute enmities to resurrect the Tamil 'resistance' defeated by the Sri Lankan army. Militant Tamils posing as people smugglers enrich themselves by exacting tens of thousands in transport fees from Sri Lankan Tamils eager to leave the country and persecution by the majority Sinhalese Sri Lankans.

Tamils anxious to leave the refugee camps into which they were herded by the Sri Lankan government, hazard dangerous ocean journeys in old hulking vessels once used by the Tigers to run guns, now pointing their bows toward Canada as an easy target to milk. With Australia's experience in unwillingly being targeted by refugees shipped by unscrupulous smugglers closing easy entry, attention turned to Canada's compassionate, open shorelines.

The original ship reaching B.C. shores last year, with 75 Tamil males of various ages has been cleared of suspicion of having harboured Tamil Tigers, and those 75 Tamils are now in the general population awaiting their refugee status hearings. Having achieved that fait accompli, the way was cleared for a successor-ship, newly arrived, with close to 500 passengers; men, women and children. A dangerous ocean passage, under miserable conditions has been completed.

The promised land reached. How to deny people hope, even when a country understands quite clearly how it has been manipulated? Legally, the government of Canada had few options open to it but to guide the ship into harbour and begin processing the refugees on a one-by-one basis. It has been rumoured that there will be an ongoing tide of successor-ships bearing additional refugees fleeing persecution.

While Australia had its isolated Pacific island where barbed-wire encampments of refugees could be housed awaiting clearance or refusal, Canada has prepared its reception areas in British Columbia jails. Where wardens have been alerted to anticipate hundreds of refugees from Sri Lanka to be incarcerated until refugee-status clearance has been achieved. The children among them would be removed from their parents and placed under more careful custody.

"Hosting an additional 250 or more people when the prisons are already bursting at their seams is unrealistic", commented Dean Purdy, chairman of corrections for the B.C. government and Service Employees Union. Think of the associated costs of the Canada Border Services Agency, the RCMP, those of housing, feeding, treating for health issues, and legal issues that Canada will be required to pick up.

Canada has an obligation under UN treaties, along with other developed countries, to absorb a certain number of refugees each year, mostly from UN-maintained refugee camps. We have had previous experience with sea-going refugees, from Vietnam, with people fleeing war in their homeland as boatpeople, desperate for a safe berth. The world is full of refugees fleeing wars in need of assistance.

Canada cannot take in all of the world's needy people. Our resources are generous but finite. As it is, greater numbers of incoming people represent greater use of precious resources. Arable land transformed to neighbourhoods for an increasing population with larger energy needs, and more calls upon the federal government for social supports, and an already-overstrained health care system groaning under growing demands.

These are not economic and social migrants from countries that plague their people with lack of freedom and opportunities for social and economic advancement under totalitarian rule. Nor are they people eager to secure citizenship in a country of refuge which will be used at times of duress, then abandoned when danger lifts, satisfied with the knowledge that Canada will then be obligated to 'rescue' them and return them to safety if and as need exists.

These are genuine refugees fearing for their lives. Among whom there may well be people who remain dedicated to the violent resistance of the government forces of another country and who will continue, in this country, to foment violence, and raise funding to arm terror groups through Canadian connections. We've been this route before. And Canadian politicians have turned a blind eye to the situation in the past.

Life within Canada becomes more complicated and more fraught with problems as greater numbers of refugees and immigrants reach our shores. It is past unfortunate that there can be no down time, no period during which all such activities are curtailed while the country seeks to absorb newcomers in a disciplined, orderly manner.

And seek in the interim to regulate far more carefully whom we are obliged to absorb for the betterment of the future of the country.