[How arrogant -- to take the phones off the hook because your constituents presume to express an opinion? It'd be bad enough if we weren't paying for it. And, of course, we were never asked about the change in our immigration patterns and our planned replacement.
VICTORIA RESIDENTS FLOODING MP KEITH MARTIN'S PHONE LINES WITH PROTESTS AGAIINST TAMIL ILLEGALS
Vancouver Province Aug 12 2010
MP Keith Martin says outraged Victorians have been flooding his office with angry phone calls for days as hundreds of Tamil refugees head for Vancouver Island.
“We’ve just had to put [the phone] on voicemail because my staff was on the phone all day long,” said Martin, whose constituency includes CFB Esquimault, where the refugees are expected to be brought.
“They’re angry because they don’t want the Tamil people to be let into Canada and they don’t want them drawing from our social services because they’re already under a lot of pressure.”
He said the callers are accusing the refugees, which Ottawa confirmed number close to 500, of jumping the immigration queue.
“Some just want them to be turned away at sea, which we can’t do for a multitude of reasons,” he said. “Legally you could do that [before the boat reached Canadian waters], but that would be signing their death warrant.” [WHY CAN'T WE? THE U.S. AND AUSTRALIA DO. WHAT DEATH WARRANT?]
Many are also concerned that members of the Tamil Tigers, banned from Canada because the group is considered a terrorist group, could be on the boat.
Martin said Canada should determine which of the refugees are legitimate, a process he concedes can take years. The Liberal MP said he supports the Conservative government’s plan to speed up the process.
He also proposed Canada ask the United Nations to set up processing centres in Sri Lanka to determine the eligibility of refugees before they leave Sri Lanka.
Two representatives from a Toronto-based National Council of Canadian Tamils are headed to Victoria to ensure the refugees know their rights, said spokesman Krisna Saravanamuttu.
In response to fears that terrorists are on the boat, he said Canada has a right to protect its national security but urged the country to treat the refugees with compassion.
“Canada has already accepted tens of thousands of Tamil immigrants, and why is this situation any different?” said Saravanamuttu, who lives in Toronto’s Tamil community of 300,000, the largest disapora outside of Sri Lanka.
He said after the claimants are processed in Vancouver, “it’s reasonable to expect many of them will come to Toronto.”
Toronto lawyer Lorne Waldman, who represented 30 of the 76 Tamil refugees who arrived by boat in B.C. last fall, said many of his clients work in restaurants, factories and the service industry.
The claimants are eligible for health care and financial assistance while they settle and apply for work permits, according to Immigration Canada’s website.
The website refutes a widely circulated e-mail stating that the claimants receive more per month than a Canadian pensioner.
Waldman said refugee claimants are eligible for welfare while they look for work.
Martin said the claimants don’t receive as much as a pensioner’s $1,100 or $1,200 a month and they don’t receive the payments for long.
Meanwhile, Victoria General Hospital was preparing for the arrival of the Tamils by reopening the hospital’s old emergency ward and reopening a closed wing for any that required inpatient care, said spokeswoman Shannon Marshall.
She said the Tamils would be kept separate from other patients and staff would be provided with precautions against any infectious diseases they may have.
