An overwhelming majority of Canadians -- 83 per cent -- believes that the passengers of the MV Sun Sea budged in line for immigration to Canada, cutting ahead of would-be immigrants who've spent years filling out paperwork. Are they correct?
The answer is an emphatic "No," according to immigration lawyer Richard Kurland.
"They are not retarding the process in any way, making it longer or more difficult in any way for anyone else," he told ctvbc.ca.
The 492 Tamil migrants from Sri Lanka are just a drop in the bucket for Canada, which is set up to handle 40,000 refugee claimants every year.
As asylum-seekers, they'll be subjected to a rigorous verification process, completely separate from immigrants who come to Canada to find work, go to school or be closer to family members.
"I don't understand what the problem is," Kurland said. "There is no connection whatsoever between these two cases."
Are they illegal immigrants?
The Catch-22 of the Canadian refugee system is that when they enter the country -- whether by boat, plane, train, bus or foot -- refugees are breaking the law by crossing our borders without the necessary paperwork.
That's why the migrants onboard the MV Sun Sea were placed in detention as soon as they docked in Canada.
"You're guilty until you're proven innocent," Kurland said.
But if they make if through the entire refugee process, and their claims of persecution in Sri Lanka are accepted, "The illegal entry is A-OK," Kurland said.
"You're in moral limbo until the outcome of the refugee process."
Kurland says that Canadians should take comfort in the fact that, last year, the government accepted 91 per cent of the approximately 1,000 refugee claimants from Sri Lanka.
In other words, the vast majority of asylum-seekers from Sri Lanka were found to have valid claims that they faced persecution, injury or death if they returned to their homeland.
"This was the desired outcome of the entire refugee system's design," Kurland said.
That's compared to asylum-seekers from countries like Hungary and the Czech Republic, whose claims of persecution in their home countries are overwhelmingly rejected -- in some years, as little as two per cent of claims from those countries are accepted.
"It's cases like that that clog up the system...that jack up the cost for the Canadian taxpayer," Kurland said.
Why didn't they apply to be refugees before they came?
Canada does have a system that allows refugees to be selected while they are still in their home countries, and just this year, the government upped the quota for overseas refugee selections to 15,000 per year.
"If there are Canadian supporters (of the Tamil migrants) in Toronto or elsewhere, they should know that there is a system where five people can form a group to sponsor a refugee," Kurland said.
But the paperwork involved could take a year or longer.
"There's no point if it's going to take a year-and-a-half and you're facing a gun barrel," he said. "If someone's life is in immediate peril, then that justifies the risk of a forced voyage."
So, by taking the brash step of arriving, unannounced, on Canada's shores with almost 500 hungry mouths, are the passengers of the MV Sun Sea budging in line in front of those people who have been waiting 18 months for their paperwork to come through?
"Not at all," Kurland said. "They're two different queues."
We won't know whether the passengers of the MV Sun Sea took the appropriate route to becoming Canadians until they've completed the refugee process, he said.
"The bottom line is you have to hear the stories and test them."
