Toronto, Oct 21 (Inditop.com) Even as Canada has promised to act tough with 76 Tamil asylum seekers who were seized in a ship off the Vancouver coast Saturday, reports say each man paid up to $45,000 to make the journey from Sri Lanka.
The ship named Ocean Lady was seized while trying smuggling the Tamils into Canada. The passengers were brought to Vancouver Sunday and sent to correctional facilities (jail) for questioning.
Quoting reports from Australia, the respected Globe and Mail daily said that the ship that brought Tamils to Canada was part of a larger network of vessels which are carrying Tamil asylum seekers to western nations.
Several vessels carrying Sri Lankans and other Asian nationals -including Afghans – have been intercepted in the Pacific Ocean, the newspaper said.
Each migrant reportedly paid up to $45,000 to get illegal entry into Canada. The Tamil diaspora reportedly financed the journey of their kin wishing to flee Sri Lanka. Canada already has more than 300,000 Sri Lankan Tamils, concentrated mostly in the Toronto area.
With newspaper readers urging the government to send back the asylum seekers, Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said Tuesday that the government will take a tough stand on the issue.
“We don’t want to develop a reputation of having a two-tier immigration system – one tier for legal, law-abiding immigrants who patiently wait to come to the country, and a second tier who seek to come through the back door, typically through the asylum system,” Kenney was quoted as saying in the media.
“We need to do a much better job of shutting the back door of immigration for those who seek to abuse that asylum system,” the immigration minister added.
But considering the Conservative government is slightly short of a majority mark in parliament, it is eagerly wooing ethnic votes which have traditionally gone to the opposition Liberal Party.
The cases of the Tamil asylum seekers will now go before the Immigration and Refugee Board. Thanks to Canada’s lax laws, there more than 60,000 refuge seekers in this country. Each refugee costs Canadian taxpayers about $30,000.
