Ottawa vows to get tough on illegal alien smugglers

Ottawa promised tough sanctions against human smugglers yesterday as immigration officials questioned nine stowaways who arrived on a container ship in the Port of Montreal.

"Abusing Canada's generosity is utterly unacceptable, and any foreign nationals who attempt to jump the queues is unfair," Public Security Minister Vic Toews said in a statement, noting he is following the stowaways' case.

"We expect any individuals found to be facilitating illegal migration to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law," Toews added.

At an event in Winnipeg yesterday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced the government plans legislation to clamp down on human smugglers.

Asked about a second Tamil migrant ship reportedly headed for Canada, Harper predicted smuggling incidents will increase unless Canada takes action.

"This government will be coming forward after the parliamentary break, with comprehensive legislation designed to ensure we deter this kind of behaviour, because I know for the vast majority of Canadians, queue jumping and human smuggling in our immigration system is completely unacceptable," Harper said.

Crew members of the MSC Lugano discovered the nine illegal migrants while the ship was in international waters. Canada Border Services Agency (CSBA) detained all nine after the ship arrived yesterday at 2 a.m. after determining that none had entry visas.

The case of the nine migrants illustrates the need for tougher measures to prosecute those who smuggle people across international borders, said the author of a new book on human trafficking.

"We need to come down extremely hard on those who are responsible for smuggling these people," said Benjamin Perrin, the author of Invisible Chains: Canada's Underground World of Human Trafficking.

"Maritime smuggling is the deadliest form of international

illegal migration. Thousands of people die every year attempting to cross international borders on vessels illegally," said Perrin, an assistant professor of law at the University of British Columbia.

Illegal migrants who pay smugglers for a sea passage to Canada face untold perils and are extremely vulnerable to exploitation when they do succeed in slipping into the country, Perrin said. Some remain in debt to the smugglers, living in slavery, while others simply disappear into the underworld of illegal immigrants, he added.

"The reason we need to crack down is it's incredibly dangerous. This is not a safe way to come to Canada."

The government has been making noises about toughening immigration and refugee laws for groups of migrants who arrive by ship since August, when 492 Tamil migrants from Sri Lanka landed in Vancouver aboard the MV Sun Sea.

However, refugee advocates warned cracking down on human smugglers could close one of the only remaining options to legitimate asylum-seekers.

"As nasty as smugglers may be, they are the only route to safety for many refugees," said Janet Dench, executive director of Canadian Council for Refugees.

Measures to deter refugees have made it next to impossible for most refugees to reach Canada's shores without the help of individuals and groups operating outside the law, she said.

History is full of examples of the perils of stowing away on a ship. Many stowaways die of asphyxiation and dehydration before reaching their destination.

At Actions Refugies, a church-based aid group, program co-ordinator Maude Cote was standing by to help, in case the stowaways place refugee claims. By early evening, she still had no news on their situation.

While fewer asylum-seekers arrive by sea than by air or land, the stowaways were not the first to arrive in the Port of Montreal this year, Cote said. "It's not all that unusual."

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