Lorrie Goldstein is back from vacation and weighing in on the Tamil boat situation (Bizarre Tamil argument doesn’t fly). I had been hoping he would address this immediately upon his return because his columns during the Tamil Gardiner incident in May of 2009 seemed to be on the side of the protesters, and so I was curious to see his reaction to the current story.
You may recall that he had called people ‘racist’ who were condemning the action and suggesting that the protesters go ‘back home’.
However today he is criticizing the Globe column by Waldman and Macklin which I had instantly dismissed as airy-fairy leftwing clattertrap myself upon first reading. Their naive POV is essentially that it is Canada’s duty to accept any and all refugees, and the system will eventually weed out the terrorists and bad guys.
Lorrie notes that the most outrageous argument is that Canada is somehow responsible for solving the problems in the rest of the world and then eventually the flood will dry up to a trickle:
But arguing the “only” way we can stop these ships is by solving the aftermath of the bloody, 26-year civil war between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers, in which ordinary Tamils and Sinhalese were victims, is a red herring.
Further, regardless of whether some future Parliament may decide to stop these vessels before reaching Canada, the permanent answer is to fix our refugee system, which is a complete mess.
On this point, Waldman and Macklin absurdly suggest the status quo is working.
Goldstein points out evidence to the contrary:
In the real world, as federal Auditor General Sheila Fraser found in her 2008 annual report, Canada’s Border Services Agency had lost track of 41,000 illegal immigrants ordered deported, most of them failed refugee claimants, hundreds of them criminals and terrorists.
Lorrie rightly asks why immigrants would bother with the complicated legal processes when there seems to be so little deterrence for illegal entry?
But how to square this circle with his earlier columns?
Lorrie reminds us that refugee policy shouldn’t be ‘made up ‘on the fly, especially not fuelled by racist attitudes implying all Tamils are terrorists, held by some in Canada.‘
And that is where we need to be careful.
For as angry as we are that our system seems broken and open to abuse, we need to remember that blanket derogatory references to groups of people can be hurtful and unfair.
But effectively weeding out the criminals, terrorists, and just plain cheaters is going to be one of our biggest challenges moving forward – for the sake of all our law-abiding citizens.
Oh, and welcome back Lorrie!
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Related
Canadian ‘compassion’ can be deadly – Brian Lilley (I highly recommend reading the whole column):
The last boat in October was the test run and the country failed miserably. While all the passengers were initially detained to determine if there were terrorist members of the Tamil Tigers on board, they were eventually all freed.
That doesn’t mean they were all innocent.
The final passengers were freed on the orders of the Immigration and Refugee Board which rejected government claims and expert witness testimony that some passengers, perhaps as many as 25 had connections to the banned terrorist group.
In February, a Federal Court judge took the IRB to task for the release of one passenger in particular, saying the immigration judge should not have overruled the immigration minister.
And this is interesting – Migrant ‘trend’ must end: Harper:
Indeed earlier this summer, the UN released a report that said: “Given the cessation of hostilities, Sri Lankans originating from the north of the country are no longer in need of international protection under broader refugee criteria or complementary forms of protection solely on the basis of risk of indiscriminate harm.”
Tamil refugee tab could hit millions – Sun:
The claimants will be eligible for work permits, welfare payments, partial health and dental coverage, and subsidized housing while their claims are being heard, Toronto lawyers said.
Hey, how about dental coverage for Canadian seniors?
Another MUST-READ by L. Ian MacDonald in today’s Gazette – Tamil refugee claimants taking advantage of us:
Because they are refugee claimants, they are accorded the same treatment as landed immigrants, and can invoke all the privileges of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This is pursuant to a Supreme Court ruling in 1985. There is actually something the government can do about this, as Ezra Levant noted elsewhere yesterday, and that would be to invoke the constitutional override of the notwithstanding clause of the Charter setting the judgment aside for five years.
This is something Ottawa has never done. But as those who were present at the creation of the Charter, including Peter Lougheed, have attested, the notwithstanding clause was the dealmaker, and there would have been no Charter without it.
David Warren’s column is very good too – Head over heart.
A hulk of a question: What to do with Sun Sea? Jack Knox, Times Colonist:
The thing is, the laws aren’t really built to dissuade large-scale migrant-hauling operations where the profit dwarfs the value of the seized boats — and if rumours of the 492 Tamils paying $40,000 or $50,000 a head are true, that’s a human cargo worth $20 million or so.
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Thursday Update
Captain of Sun Sea has links to Tigers: Newspaper – Province:
...Public Safety Minister Vic Toews has said the Thai cargo ship was part of a “broader criminal enterprise” and a “test boat” intended to gauge Ottawa’s attitude toward refugees arriving by ship.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper echoed those words Tuesday by stating that Ottawa “will not hesitate to strengthen the laws” in order to tackle the “trend” of would-be refugees arriving via human-smuggling ships.
A more forthcoming source has been the Malay Mail newspaper, which reported this week that the commander of the Sun Sea is a man known as Capt. Vinod, who studied at the Malaysian Maritime Academy in Malacca during its early days.
While in Malaysia, Vinod stayed in close contact with local financiers of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), or Tamil Tigers, Singapore-based terrorism expert Prof. Rohan Gunaratna told the newspaper…
With friends like the UN, who needs enemies? – Toronto Sun Editorial
Why is Moon blind to West exporting terrorism? Part II – LankaWeb
Canada: End refugee free-for-all – Ozzie Saffa (Interesting Australian POV, with a link to Ezra’s column)
Identifying captain, crew of Tamil ship could be difficult, expert says – Gazette
