Canada'S Boat People
WALLER, HAROLD M .
REFUGEES OR IMMIGRANTS? Canada's Boat People BY HAROLD M.WALLER Montreal We may live in an era of skepticism toward the idea of progress in human relations, but events last month in Canada...
...In the case of potential refugees the point system is not employed...
...The scant supplies of food and water found aboard the lifeboats intensified Canadian sympathy for the Tamils...
...The much-publicized newcomers will probably receive permanent resident status in due course...
...As an editorialist in Montreal's La Presse put it, "The impression prevails that entering Canada is easier for anyone presenting himself as a political refugee than it is f or a European loaded down with diplomas, speaking both of the country' s languages, and having the money to support himself...
...One of the fears they expressed was that the incident would highlight the country's liberal intake policies, producing a flood of phony refugees...
...The revelation that the Tamils had misled Canadian officials provoked considerable anger and calls for cancellation of their welcome...
...The Tamils were then deposited in lifeboats near Canada's coast...
...In the 1981 census, 93 per cent of the population belonged to a European ethnic group and about half of them were of British origin...
...Instead, the key issue is whether the applicant meets the legal definition—whether he or she is truly the victim of persecution...
...Even in the period 1946-71 nearly one-third of the arrivals were from Britain, with another 9 per cent coming from the United States...
...But that does not appear likely...
...Most were unable to speak either of Canada's two official languages, but the authorities managed to get the following story from them: After setting out on a freighter from an Indian port in July and suffering miserable conditions during a lengthy westward voyage, they had been set afloat by the captain of their nameless vessel in the Atlantic, where they drifted for five days before being rescued...
...Although it soon turned out that the Tamils' story about their plight was fabricated, officials stuck to their decision and withstood the inevitable criticism...
...The Tamils also furnished terrifying accounts of their treatment in Sri Lanka at the hands of the majority Sinhalese, and pleaded that they feared for their lives if they had to return home...
...They are permitted to hold jobs, too, in contrast with the situation in West Germany...
...The other two national party leaders supported his decision, effectively cutting off any further political opposition...
...Canada was built by immigration and refugees," he declared, "and those who arrive in lifeboats off the coast of one of our shores will not be turned away...
...Nevertheless, their deception is sure to spur a reconsideration of the method for distinguishing genuine refugees from mere migrants in search of a better socioeconomic situation...
...European countries afford convenient way stations, the Germanies being particularly useful because of a unique situation in Berlin...
...A Sri Lankan, for example, can fly directly to East Berlin and then pass unimpeded into West Berlin because there is no passport control at the Wall...
...Once there, he can move on to other parts of the Federal Republic...
...if turned down, the claimant has recourse to an Immigration Appeal Board...
...immigration officers quickly allowed them into the country under one year permits, despite some inconsistencies in their story—especially the part about dri fting in the Atlantic for five days...
...Established in 1867 as a federal union of Quebec, Ontario, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick—provinces consisting mainly of French and English groups—Canada began to receive appreciable numbers of newcomers between 1891 -1902...
...Informed observers pointed out that this was not the first attempt to smuggle dubious refugees into Canada—the practice is in fact fairly routine...
...In addition, officials try to assess both the ability to adapt to Canadian life and the amount of economic assistance that will be required...
...The latest group of Tamils to arrive on these shores appeared to be people so desperate to escape persecution in their homeland that they had grabbed passage any way they could, disregarding the personal risk and great financial cost of their odyssey...
...But attempts to reverse the decision to accept them were squelched by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney...
...Canada's Boat People BY HAROLD M.WALLER Montreal We may live in an era of skepticism toward the idea of progress in human relations, but events last month in Canada showed it is still possible for a country to become more caring with the passage of time...
...Most of the others traced their roots to northern Europe...
...For the Tamils, who were pretty certain they would not be admitted as regular immigrants, duplicity no doubt seemed a reasonable risk to take...
...Between 10-20 thousand foreigners annually have been given residence under the classification in the past several years, the bulk of them coming from such places as Sri Lanka, El Salvador, Iran, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic...
...Nonetheless, the immigration system treated entrepreneurs and the self-employed with relative lenience...
...The country is not anxious to retain its image as a soft touch...
...The result of the various immigration waves is a country consisting largely of people of European stock...
...Applications from those who claim to be refugees are handled differently...
...Canadians were moved by the incident to reflect on the history of their own country as a society built by immigrants...
...As historians Irving Abella and Harold Troper observed in their notable book None Is Too Many, "There was no groundswell of opposition [to the government's refusal to take in the Jews], no humanitarian appeal for a more open policy...
...Claims for refugee status are submitted to the Minister of Immigration...
...The discovery of 155 Sri Lankan Tamils adrift in two lifeboats off Newfoundland, and their subsequent admission in Canada, evoked memories of a less generous spirit a half century ago, when the Ottawa government callously denied sanctuary to Jews in flight from Nazism...
...Canada' s relative allure stems not only from the variety of legal options it affords even frivolous pretenders to refugee status, but also its allowing new arrivals to benefit from the welfare, medicare and education systems while awaiting determination of their petitions...
...Employment factors thus play a major role in determining the admissibility of normal new arrivals...
...moreover, the granting of permanent asylum is relatively rare...
...It would of course be a terrible shame if in the process the "none is too many" notion were to be revived, replacing the humanitarian impulse that has come to characterize Canadian thinking on immigration...
...As in the case of the United States, the proportion of citizens descended from indigenous inhabitants is small indeed...
...The new arrivals were settled in Toronto and Montreal, where they were welcomed by some 8,000 fellow Tamils who have already formed communities...
...Some things not only change for the better...
...West Germany is not itself a very desirable destination: Petitioners for refugee status there are poorly housed and are denied the right to work while their cases are under consideration...
...If the applicant can prove that he or she cannot return to the home country because of such fear, then admission to Canada is likely to be granted...
...Even the outbreak of war and the mounting evidence of an ongoing Nazi program for the total annihilation of European Jewry did not move Canada...
...Within a few days, though, a rather different picture emerged...
...No one who arrives in Canada can be forced to leave without an inquiry, irrespective of what immigration officers decide initially...
...The next dozen years saw an acceleration of the trend with the arrival of over 2.5 million foreigners...
...Just as the substance of immigration policy has become moreenlightened, so have the procedures...
...The Tamils were quickly granted admission on ministerial permits for a year, while their applications for refugee status are being considered...
...Smuggling rings have thus sprung up to facilitate removal to nations that appear more inviting—like Canada...
...Harold M. W aller, who writes frequently for the NL on Canadian affairs, is chairman of the Department of Political Science at McGill L 'niversity...
...The contrast between the closed-door treatment accorded the Jews fleeing Hitler in the 1930s and '40s and the reception given the Tamils in 1986 is a dramatic indication that Canada has learned from experience...
...They had each paid a West German captain some $3,000 (substantially in excess of the air fare, it should be noted) for the privilege of being transported across the Atlantic in the cargo hold of his freighter under inhumane and unsanitary conditions...
...To provide what is supposed to be an objective formula for evaluating applications, a point system designed to reflect labor market needs has been adopted...
...they seem to take deep root...
...however, Italians have been numerous for nearly 40 years...
...Throughout these years immigrants from the British Isles dominated the influx...
...Following the hiatus caused by World War I, the flow resumed in the 1920s at a level of about 125,000 per year...
...The Tamils were sighted and picked up by a fishing boat on August 11...
...The recession earlier in the decade, for example, led to a reduction of immigration quotas as pressure to protect Canadian jobs weighed heavily on politicians...
...After persistent questioning the purported refugees admitted that their actual point of departure was West Germany, and that they had been adrift for two days, not five...
...Officials frown on the misuse of the refugee route: A refugee, they insist, ought to be a person who genuinely has no place to go, not simply someone trying to better his lot by moving to Canada...
...It then slowed to a trickle over the next two decades, but averaged 100,000 annually in the 1950s...
...Critics were left to write letters to editors or phone radio stations...
...Its response remained legalistic and cold...
...The general attitude was that, regardless of their prevarications as to the circumstances of the voyage, these people were fleeing from cruel oppression and deserving of asylum...
...The operative criterion is a United Nations definition that designates as a refugee anyone who has "a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion...
...Current immigration policy, in a significant departure from the past, is founded on the principles of nondiscrimination, humanitarian concern for refugees and the reunion of families, plus the promotion of Canada's social, economic, demographic, and cultural goals...
...Among those seeking residence in Canada who have no family connections here, posing as a refugee may well seem a more promising mode of entry than the "economic stream" (the term used to refer to conventional immigrants...
Vol. 69 • September 1986 • No. 12
