Who is Justice Minister Irwin Cotler trying to deceive? Canadian voters or the U.S. government? More likely, both.
Two weeks ago, the U.S. State Department uttered a public warning that Canada had become a significant hub of operations in the vast and lucrative people-smuggling trade.
It certainly had the ring of truth; apart from the recent memory of rusty Chinese fishing boats landing dozens of would-be illegal immigrants on Canada's west coast, the office of the auditor general has also detailed the appalling laxity of the country's immigration and refugee handling procedure.
Thanks to the constipated nature of the system, poorly documented refugee claimants are released into Canadian society for as long as two years, pending hearings to establish their status.
Many simply disappear. Auditor General Sheila Fraser stated in one of her reports that 36,000 illegal aliens were unaccounted for, including several dozen suspected war criminals.
Many Canadians were horrified. And, so, Cotler promises a review of the Criminal Code to toughen people-smuggling laws and the establishment of an RCMP human-trafficking investigative team.
This is a smokescreen, pure and simple.
We Already Have Sufficient Ammunition in the Revised Immigration Act
Under Sections 118 and 119 of the revised Immigration Act, proclaimed not long after the attacks on the World Trade Center, the maximum penalties for people-smugglers are fines up to $1 million, life imprisonment -- or both.
How exactly does Cotler think he's going to toughen the regulations?
Nothing Happens When Illegals are Caught
And even when Canada catches people, not much happens. In 2001 -- less than a month after 9/11 -- two Windsor men were caught trying to smuggle four of their compatriots into the United Staates. They got just six months, with credit for time served. . . .
Of course, the ringleaders, the so-called snakeheads and the Russian organized crime bosses, remain forever out of Canada's reach.
How -- Without Enough Money and Funding?
[. . . Setting] up a specialized RCMP unit, is equally risible, since the RCMP, the Immigration Service and the Canada Customs are all undermanned and under-resourced.
If significant funds are allocated to one project, it is at the expense of another. [. . . .]
After 9/11, each agency got more money; the RCMP's $1.2-billion budget -- less now in real terms than in 1990 -- was boosted by $200 million.
Yet in fall 2003, it was cut back $21 million, while CCRA lost $22 million and immigration $14 million -- a total of $67 million, even as the $250-million sponsorship scandal was delivering millions of dollars to Liberal-friendly ad agencies.
Suggestions: [. . . . ]
- The refugee process must be reformed so that undocumented people can no longer be allowed to roam the country unsupervised;
