Migrant ship docks in Canada, refugee debate flares

VANCOUVER, (Reuters) – Canadian authorities unloaded  a cramped cargo ship yesterday of nearly 500 Tamil asylum  seekers from Sri Lanka whose arrival has sparked a national  debate over the country’s immigration and refugee laws.

The sun was just rising on Pacific Coast when MV Sun Sea  sailed under escort into a Canadian Navy base near Victoria,  British Columbia, on Vancouver Island, and docked next to a  makeshift camp set up to process the men, women and children on  board.

Officials said the ship was in good condition, but they  would not describe the accommodations of the estimated 490  people who may have spent more than two months housed in the  cargo hold of the 59-metre-long (194-foot-long) vessel.

Several people were taken to a Victoria hospital to be  checked out, but officials were not aware of any major medical  problems. The crew was “compliant” when navy personnel boarded  the ship on Thursday, the military said.

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews warned that Canada will be  taking a tough line with the Thai-owned ship, which he said was  believed to be carrying terrorists and may be part of a larger,  international human smuggling operation.

“Canada has very generous refugee laws, and my concern is  that individuals not take advantage of the existing laws in  order to further criminal or terrorist activities,” Toews told  a news conference.

The people on the Sun Sea are believed to be Tamils fleeing  Sri Lanka, but Canada fears some are members of the Liberation  Tigers of Tamil Eelam, which fought a bloody independence war  that was crushed last year.

The military wing of the Tamil independence movement is  considered a terrorist organization by Ottawa, which would make  it illegal for members or supporters of the Tamil Tigers to  immigrate to Canada.

The Sun Sea is the second ship carrying Tamil migrants to  arrive in Canada in less than a year, and officials fear more  are on the way. A cargo ship carrying 76 Tamil refugee  claimants docked on the West Coast last October, but arrivals  of boat people are a relatively rare occurrence.

At least four boats arrived on Canada’s Pacific Coast in  the late 1990s carrying Chinese migrants, who experts familiar  with the incident believe were actually being smuggled though  Canada to the United States.

Canada received 34,000 refugee applications last year, with  most made by people after arriving by air or by driving in from  the United States.

An estimated 250,000 people of Tamil decent live in Canada,  primarily in the Toronto area. It is said to be the largest  Tamil population outside Sri Lanka and India.

The arguments in Canada over immigration have never reached  the fevered pitch heard in the United States, but the Sun Sea  incident has set off a front-page debate in the media over  whether its rules are too lax.

Opposition parties and some refugee experts warned the  government not to jump to conclusions about who the migrants  are, and said each person’s case should be judged  individually.

“Obviously, in the aftermath of the war in Sri Lanka, a  great deal hardship was experienced and there are a lot of  people who want to get out of Sri Lanka,” Bob Rae, the Liberal  Party’s foreign affairs critic told CBC.

The government is looking at toughening immigration laws so  that boat people are treated differently from other  refugee-seekers, the Globe and Mail newspaper reported.