BY MARY ELLEN MARUS
VANCOUVER, British Columbia- "No, we are not sending them
back!" declared Harinder Dylan from the Community Coalition
Against Racism kicking off a rally outside a military base in
Esquimault, British Columbia, where 200 recent Chinese
immigrants are detained.
The September 6 action was organized to welcome the immigrants and condemn their treatment by Canadian immigration authorities and the media. More than 75 people, half of them youth, turned out for the rally at the base, which is near the city of Victoria.
Since mid-July three ships crammed with nearly 450 Chinese migrants have been seized by the Canadian Coast Guard off the shores of British Columbia, Canada's westernmost province. The immigrants were taken to the military base in Esquimault where men, women, and children have been strip-searched, handcuffed, and detained while waiting for immigration hearings.
Ever since, a daily anti-immigrant campaign has been waged by capitalist politicians and by the big-business media. One headline in the Victoria daily blared "Go Home." The Vancouver Province insisted, "Enough Already," in a front page headline. Other newspaper headlines have warned of the "threat" of a "flood" of "illegal" immigrants, especially from China.
The unregistered ships that carried the immigrants across the Pacific Ocean were overcrowded, with no life jackets or boats, unsanitary conditions, and limited food and medicine. Passengers from one boat were dumped into the sea and forced to swim to shore.
Smugglers known as "snakeheads" charge tens of thousands of dollars to smuggle people from China to North America, where accomplices arrange low-paid jobs in factories, restaurants, and brothels. The workers are then forced to repay their passage over a number of years working, in effect, as indentured servants.
Politicians from all capitalist parties have been campaigning for harsher action to stem what Ujjal Dosanjh, attorney general for the New Democratic Party administration in British Columbia, described as a "deluge."
The rightist Reform Party has led this campaign. Dan Stinson, a Reform Party Member of Parliament, has called on the government to "ship them back automatically." Under current Canadian law any immigrant who claims refugee status has the right to an immigration hearing and the right to a lawyer. Many of those leading the campaign against the Chinese immigrants argue that immigration laws in the United States, Australia, and New Zealand are much tougher and that similar laws should be adopted here as well.
Conservative columnist Diane Francis of the National Post maintained, "Ottawa is exposing Canada to grave risks and financing a criminal class that will hurt this country for years to come."
Paul Fromm is an ultrarightist who crusades against immigration from Asia and other semicolonial countries on his "Canada First" website. He claims that Ottawa in 1967 changed the source of immigration from Europe and Britain to the Third World.
Despite the claims of a "flood" of refugees to Canada "the fact is that Canada receives less than three-tenths of 1 percent of the world's refugees," according to Francisco Rico- Martinez, the president of the Canadian Council for Refugees.
Each day hundreds of thousands of workers move from one country to another as a result of poverty, war, famine, or political repression. Many are forced to emigrate without proper papers as a result of restrictive immigration laws.
The daily media barrage has polarized discussions among working people in Canada. The wide range of views is reflected in discussions among aerospace workers in the sheet metal department at Avcorp, a company south of Vancouver, where this reporter works. Ed Zuk, whose words reflected the view of many, asked, "If thousands come where will we get the jobs and money for them? The country will be in a worse recession."
Gurmeet Gill from India said he felt torn. "If I think like a human being it makes no difference if they come in. But from a jobs perspective I worry there won't be enough jobs."
Allan Morrison from Trinidad insisted, "We should welcome the immigrants. We all need sanctuary somewhere."
Kit Tan, a young worker from Hong Kong, is among the one- third of Vancouver residents who are of Chinese origin. Originally he believed that the Chinese immigrants who entered Canada "illegally" should be deported.
Now, as a result of discussion, he said, "I've changed my mind. They should be allowed to stay. The politicians and media say we're paying thousands of dollars for each immigrant in order to try to convince us they should be deported."
Marco Herrarte, who originally came from Guatemala as a refugee, pointed out, "Immigrants are just looking for a better life for themselves and their families."
To counter the anti-immigrant campaign the Urban Youth Alliance helped organize the September 6 "Welcome the Chinese" rally in Esquimault.
Lynn Highway, a student at Camosun College brought a hand- made sign that said: "Who you calling an immigrant... pilgrim?"
Teksiawa brought his own welcoming sign in Chinese that read: "How are you? Good luck." He also translated all the comments made by the rally participants for the refugees in the base.
Daniel McKinnon of the Canadian Union of Postal workers explained why he and a co-worker came to the rally. "It's a trade union issue. Anyone who's under attack should be defended-an injury to one is an injury to all."
Mary Ellen Marus is a member of International Association of Machinists Lodge 11. Annette Kouri contributed to this article.