Another Tamil ship on its way to our shores

[Goober]

The territorial sea, twelve miles from the mean low water mark is no different than Cape Breton Island, when it comes to our sovereignty. Ships are allowed to pass through if the intent is innocent. I'm sure that we have every right to stop a suspected ship.

If Canada goes the route of Israel in searching the ship, I recommend no Sea King flights...we might be accused of using suicide bombers

Ain't that the truth.

 

[earth_as_one]

We owe these people nothing. If they are in fact refugee's and they can afford to pay human smuggler for a ship to Canada surely they can enter Canada via the appropriate channels?

These people are abusing our immigration laws and are a slap in the face to refugees who go through the proper channels to get here.

Send them back.

Exactly how do Tamil Tigers and their supporters go through this process in Sri Lanka? Its normal for refugees to break laws and use false identification to escape persecution and death. If I were in their situation, I'd break any laws required short of harming someone else. Screw visas and proper identification.... Getting out alive with your family is more important than correctly filling out some forms.

I am proud of Canada's record of compassion and fairness regarding refugees. If these people cannot return to home, are no threat, have no place else to go, then we should accept them, pending a criminal background check.

Canada's refugee system:

The refugee system in Canada

The refugee system in Canada
Tradition of humanitarian action

Our compassion and fairness are a source of great pride for Canadians.
These values are at the core of our domestic refugee protection system and our resettlement program. Both programs have long been praised by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Refugees are people who have fled their countries because of a well-founded fear of widespread persecution, and who are unable to return home. Many refugees come from war-torn countries and have seen unthinkable horrors.

A refugee is different from an immigrant, in that an immigrant is a person who chooses to settle permanently in another country. Refugees are forced to flee....

That pretty much describe the situation of the people on that boat.

Most of the opinions expressed here are pretty callous and un-Canadian. Your attitudes are not that different than those which prevailed during the 1930's and 40's when Jewish refugees were fleeing Europe. When we sent those refugees back to Europe, most of them ended up in extermination camps.
There is a good chance that people who fought against the Sri Lankan government and their supporters would face persecution and death. Their plight is not that different than these people:

St. Louis sailed from Hamburg to Cuba on May 13, 1939, carrying seven non-Jewish and 930 Jewish refugees (mainly German) seeking asylum from Nazi persecution.[1][2] On the ship’s arrival in Cuba, the Cuban government under Federico Laredo Brú refused the passengers entry as either tourists (laws related to tourist visas had recently been changed) or under political asylum. During negotiations, the government requested an additional $500 visa fee per passenger, money which most of the refugees did not have. The demands prompted a near-mutiny. Two passengers attempted suicide, and dozens more threatened to do the same. However, 29 of the refugees managed to disembark at Havana.[3]...

... As St. Louis was turned away from the United States, a group of academics and clergy in Canada attempted to persuade Canada's Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King to provide sanctuary to the ship, which was only two days from Halifax, Nova Scotia.[8] However Canadian immigration officials and cabinet ministers hostile to Jewish immigration persuaded the Prime Minister not to intervene on June 9.[9]

"Of the 620 St. Louis passengers who returned to continental Europe, we determined that eighty-seven were able to emigrate before Germany invaded western Europe on May 10, 1940. Two hundred and fifty-four passengers in Belgium, France and the Netherlands after that date died during the Holocaust. Most of these people were murdered in the killing centers of Auschwitz and Sobibór; the rest died in internment camps, in hiding or attempting to evade the Nazis. Three hundred sixty-five of the 620 passengers who returned to continental Europe survived the war."[17]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_St._Louis#Voyage_of_the_Damned

That was a shameful moment in Canada's history. I don't support repeating that mistake with these people. Most of those people on the SS St Louis would have made model Canada citizens. I believe that most of these people fleeing war and persecution in Sri Lanka would also become model citizens, grateful to Canada for accepting them as refugees.

Many of you advocate extermination. Seventy years ago, Hitler also decided that extermination was an appropriate final solution to dealing with undesirables. The Nazis started out shooting them, but later on developed more efficient methods.

M.K. Ghandi and Jesus Christ would probably support a more compassionate approach to solving this problem.

The time to act against atrocities is at the time they occur. If this was 70 years ago, I'd support allowing the SS St. Louis refugees into Canada, just like I support allowing these Sri Lankan refugees into Canada today. I can guess what most of the people posting on this thread would have supported 70 years ago. Hitler would be proud of you.

 

[lone wolf]

Many of you advocate extermination. Seventy years ago, Hitler also decided that extermination was an appropriate final solution to dealing with undesirables. The Nazis started out shooting them, but later on developed more efficient methods.

M.K. Ghandi and Jesus Christ would probably support a more compassionate approach to solving this problem.

The time to act against atrocities is at the time they occur. If this was 70 years ago, I'd support allowing the SS St. Louis refugees into Canada, just like I support allowing these Sri Lankan refugees into Canada today. I can guess what most of the people posting on this thread would have supported 70 years ago. Hitler would be proud of you.

In case you hadn't noticed: THIS ISN'T ABOUT ISRAEL!

 

[DurkaDurka]

Exactly how do Tamil Tigers and their supporters go through this process in Sri Lanka? Its normal for refugees to break laws and use false identification to escape persecution and death. If I were in their situation, I'd break any laws required short of harming someone else. Screw visas and proper identification.... Getting out alive with your family is more important than correctly filling out some forms.

I am proud of Canada's record of compassion and fairness regarding refugees. If these people cannot return to home, are no threat, have no place else to go, then we should accept them, pending a criminal background check.

Canada's refugee system:

The refugee system in Canada
That pretty much describe the situation of the people on that boat.

Most of the opinions expressed here are pretty callous and un-Canadian. Your attitudes are not that different than those which prevailed during the 1930's and 40's when Jewish refugees were fleeing Europe. When we sent those refugees back to Europe, most of them ended up in extermination camps.
There is a good chance that people who fought against the Sri Lankan government and their supporters would face persecution and death. Their plight is not that different than these people:

MS St. Louis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

That was a shameful moment in Canada's history. I don't support repeating that mistake with these people. Most of those people on the SS St Louis would have made model Canada citizens. I believe that most of these people fleeing war and persecution in Sri Lanka would also become model citizens, grateful to Canada for accepting them as refugees.

Many of you advocate extermination. Seventy years ago, Hitler also decided that extermination was an appropriate final solution to dealing with undesirables. The Nazis started out shooting them, but later on developed more efficient methods.

M.K. Ghandi and Jesus Christ would probably support a more compassionate approach to solving this problem.

The time to act against atrocities is at the time they occur. If this was 70 years ago, I'd support allowing the SS St. Louis refugees into Canada, just like I support allowing these Sri Lankan refugees into Canada today. I can guess what most of the people posting on this thread would have supported 70 years ago. Hitler would be proud of you.

Nice to see that you are a supporter of Human Smugglers & terrorists, Earth. Many refugee's have come to Canada without resorting to paying gangsters to smuggle them in. We have immigration laws for a reason, or do we? You seem to think Canada should be a free-for-all for anyone & everyone.

Your reason goes down the crapper when you compare Canadian's attitudes to that of Europe during WWII. Asking that our laws are respected is reasonable & logical, you on the other hand have respect for nothing unless it suits your agenda.

You cannot even begin to compare Tamil's to Jew's during WW2, there is absolutely nothing similar between them. The Tamils lost their war, end of story. The Jews were exterminated. See the difference?

Hitler would be proud of me? You're facking pathetic. I doubt even your own mother would be proud of you.

 

[CDNBear]

Nice to see that you are a supporter of Human Smugglers & terrorists, Earth. Many refugee's have come to Canada without resorting to paying gangsters to smuggle them in. We have immigration laws for a reason, or do we? You seem to think Canada should be a free-for-all for anyone & everyone.

Your reason goes down the crapper when you compare Canadian's attitudes to that of Europe during WWII. Asking that our laws are respected is reasonable & logical, you on the other hand have respect for nothing unless it suits your agenda.

You cannot even begin to compare Tamil's to Jew's during WW2, there is absolutely nothing similar between them. The Tamils lost their war, end of story. The Jews were exterminated. See the difference?

Hitler would be proud of me? You're facking pathetic. I doubt even your own mother would be proud of you.

 

[Bcool]

In case you hadn't noticed: THIS ISN'T ABOUT ISRAEL!

No it isn't. Israel didn't exist 70 years ago. The families on that ship were turned away from every country they asked to give them refuge from the horrors and death they had to flee because of their beliefs. The shame felt in hindsight by many of the countries who denied them refuge, including Canada, because of racism, bigotry, anti-semitism made the St. Louis a symbol of what happens when such attitudes are allowed to make the rules. And contributed to the evental creation of safe haven for legitimate refugees in many countries.

It made me very sad to read the posts about how this "Tamil ship" and the people on it should be treated. This is not the Canadian way that I know. They come from a place where processing for immigration status is not possible, where war, atrocities and killing is known to going on at a massive scale. They may well not be legitimate refugees. But how will we know what they are without humanely ensuring they are not?

Canada and the UN left our Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire hopelessly understaffed and with little to no resources in a country where wholesale killing and atrocities were being videotaped by freelance journalists & Dallaire's aide and being sent to the UN and Canada. He was trying desperately to save as many as he could, that was his duty and his own deeply held sense of moral obligation. He was given no help. He and his small contingent of very brave Canadian servicemen had to watch helplessly as men, women, children and babies were hacked to death because of their ethnicity and he has suffered the consequences of what he endured ever since.

What do you think Senator Roméo Antonius Dallaire, OC, CMM, GOQ, MSC, CD, Lieutenant-General Ret'd, holder of The Order of Canada, hero to thousands now for his humanity, morality, sense of honour and duty, courage, who has suffered ever since Rawanda from severe PTSD and depression; what do you think he would post in response to talk of blowing the ship out of the water, turning it away with no checking whether there is enough food and water and medical supplies; whether the children and babies are safe, healthy, fed and cared for; whether the ship's passengers appear to be suffering, are in need of safe harbour in Canada under our refugee guidelines whilst being adjudicated as to their status as legitimate refugees? Having heard this man, the epitomy to me of what Canada is, speak of what and who we are as a country, of our compassion and our role in the world, I think he too would be greatly saddened by a lot of what has been written here.

This is not a criticism nor condemnation of anyone here. I just felt the need to express how this thread has affected and saddened me. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. Mine differs from the majority I guess.
___________________

 

[CDNBear]

No it isn't. Israel didn't exist 70 years ago. The families on that ship were turned away from every country they asked to give them refuge from the horrors and death they had to flee because of their beliefs. The shame felt in hindsight by many of the countries who denied them refuge, including Canada, because of racism, bigotry, anti-semitism made the St. Louis a symbol of what happens when such attitudes are allowed to make the rules. And contributed to the evental creation of safe haven for legitimate refugees in many countries.

So?

It made me very sad to read the posts about how this "Tamil ship" and the people on it should be treated. This is not the Canadian way that I know. They come from a place where processing for immigration status is not possible, where war, atrocities and killing is known to going on at a massive scale. They may well not be legitimate refugees. But how will we know what they are without humanely ensuring they are not?

They most certainly can apply for immigration into Canada as a refugee. How do you think the majority of Tamils get here? By immaculate immigration?

The Canadian way is slowly becoming the "grab your ankles and pray" way. Because people, not unlike yourself, feel it's ok to circumvent legal procedures, so long as it places a Hello Kitty bandaid on your bleeding heart.

Canada and the UN left our Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire hopelessly understaffed and with little to no resources in a country where wholesale killing and atrocities were being videotaped by freelance journalists & Dallaire's aide and being sent to the UN and Canada. He was trying desperately to save as many as he could, that was his duty and his own deeply held sense of moral obligation. He was given no help. He and his small contingent of very brave Canadian servicemen had to watch helplessly as men, women, children and babies were hacked to death because of their ethnicity and he has suffered the consequences of what he endured ever since.

Your point?

What do you think Senator Roméo Antonius Dallaire, OC, CMM, GOQ, MSC, CD, Lieutenant-General Ret'd, holder of The Order of Canada, hero to thousands now for his humanity, morality, sense of honour and duty, courage, who has suffered ever since Rawanda from severe PTSD and depression; what do you think he would post in response to talk of blowing the ship out of the water, turning it away with no checking whether there is enough food and water and medical supplies; whether the children and babies are safe, healthy, fed and cared for; whether the ship's passengers appear to be suffering, are in need of safe harbour in Canada under our refugee guidelines whilst being adjudicated as to their status as legitimate refugees? Having heard this man, the epitomy to me of what Canada is, speak of what and who we are as a country, of our compassion and our role in the world, I think he too would be greatly saddened by a lot of what has been written here.

When you demand your gov't makes sure that that is happening for every Canadian across the country, come back and talk to to me.

This is not a criticism nor condemnation of anyone here. I just felt the need to express how this thread has affected and saddened me. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. Mine differs from the majority I guess.
___________________

Yes, yes it does.

 

[DurkaDurka]

No it isn't. Israel didn't exist 70 years ago. The families on that ship were turned away from every country they asked to give them refuge from the horrors and death they had to flee because of their beliefs. The shame felt in hindsight by many of the countries who denied them refuge, including Canada, because of racism, bigotry, anti-semitism made the St. Louis a symbol of what happens when such attitudes are allowed to make the rules. And contributed to the evental creation of safe haven for legitimate refugees in many countries.

Another post lost to irrelevancy. The Tamil situation does not resemble the Jewish situation during WWII in any way or manner.

It made me very sad to read the posts about how this "Tamil ship" and the people on it should be treated. This is not the Canadian way that I know. They come from a place where processing for immigration status is not possible, where war, atrocities and killing is known to going on at a massive scale. They may well not be legitimate refugees. But how will we know what they are without humanely ensuring they are not?

What is the "Canadian Way"? I don't suppose it's some mythical idealism invented by Trudeau by chance? Does the "Canadian Way" include laws or do we rescind them when it's convenient for certain groups?

Why should we encourage & condone behavior such as this? It reeks to favoritism and makes a farce of our laws.

 

[Walter]

Where's the IDF when you need them?

 

[CDNBear]

Where's the IDF when you need them?

 

[JLM]

I hope while these Tamils are in jail, the conditions are severe enough that the rest of their bretherin back home don't get similar ideas and I hope they can find something productive for them to do to help defray costs and pay their passage home. :lol::lol:

 

[VanIsle]

They will all be housed in prisons when they arrive in Victoria.

VANCOUVER - RCMP and the Canada Border Services Agency are expected to board a ship that may be carrying Tamil Tigers sometime this week, says the spokesman for a B.C. municipality.
John Leeburn with the District of Maple Ridge, 45 kilometres east of Vancouver, said Tuesday that two local prisons will be used to house those on board the MV Sun Sea.
The Thai cargo ship is reported to be carrying about 200 Sri Lankans.
Ottawa has expressed concern about members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam — a banned terrorist organization in Canada — being on board the vessel.
Leeburn said district officials were briefed about the plan late last week by wardens at the Fraser Regional Correctional Centre and the Alouette Correctional Centre for women.
"What we were told was that mid-week this week, the RCMP and Canada Border Services would be boarding the vessel off-shore and that ultimately the vessel would dock in Victoria," he said in an interview.
Leeburn said about 100 men and 80 women would then be transported to the two provincial prisons. He couldn't say where any children would be housed if they were found on board.
RCMP declined comment on the matter Tuesday. Foreign Affairs could not immediately be reached.
Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said Monday the federal government is monitoring the situation closely. He declined to comment on the specifics of the government's plan.
Toews did say that while the government is committed to protecting genuine refugees, it will thwart those who try to abuse Canada's immigration policies.
The ship heading to British Columbia contains both members of the Tamil Tigers, the military arm of the Tamil separatist movement, and Sri Lankan Tamils who paid them huge sums for safe passage, said Professor Rohan Gunaratna, at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.
Gunaratna, who's studied the organization for more than 20 years, said the MV Sun Sea was initially bound for Australia but changed course when its crew realized the country has toughened up its refugee laws.
"The Tamil Tigers currently are laughing at Canada, how naive the Canadians are, and I believe that Canada should take a stand that it will not permit anyone who has engaged in terrorism ... to enter Canada," he said.
Two more ships are set to deploy from Thailand or Indonesia in coming months based on Canada's response to the MV Sun Sea, he said.

 

[CDNBear]

Australia but changed course when its crew realized the country has toughened up its refugee laws.
"The Tamil Tigers currently are laughing at Canada, how naive the Canadians are, and I believe that Canada should take a stand that it will not permit anyone who has engaged in terrorism ... to enter Canada," he said.
Two more ships are set to deploy from Thailand or Indonesia in coming months based on Canada's response to the MV Sun Sea, he said.

Awesome!

So on top of the obvious probing we just got, we get to pay at minimum, $200,000CDN, for the first year here, per "refugee".

Awesome.

 

[Ron in Regina]

The Topic is this Ship sailing into Canadian Waters....

 

[CDNBear]

The Topic is this Ship sailing into Canadian Waters....

Appearance by VI = Mod showing up?



I bet I can guess whose posts got "reported"...

Priceless.

As for the topic, I thought it was Canada being used as TP by criminals. Go figure.

 

[Ron in Regina]

Appearance by VI = Mod showing up?



I bet I can guess whose posts got "reported"...

Priceless.

As for the topic, I thought it was Canada being used as TP by criminals. Go figure.

Actually...nothing was reported. I happened to be listening to Talk Radio (yeah, I know,
Redneck Conservative Prairie Boy, etc...& they'e talking about this ship...so I started to
read through this Thread, & here we are....

You could be very well correct on the Topic content, as I got distracted by all the Trolling
and such...which I'll remove for everyones benifit, & try reading the Thread again.

 

[CDNBear]

Actually...nothing was reported. I happened to be listening to Talk Radio (yeah, I know,
Redneck Conservative Prairie Boy, etc...& they'e talking about this ship...so I started to
read through this Thread, & here we are....

My humblest apologies to VI. But you gotta love the coincidence...

You could be very well correct on the Topic content, as I got distracted by all the Trolling

and such...which I'll remove for everyones benifit, & try reading the Thread again.

Awww c'mon, that's some of my best work!

Can you at least give me a minute to copy it to archives first?

 

[DaSleeper]

Heheh..If it wasn't for a bit of levity and ...yes...a bit of trolling....once in a while...this place would die of boredom:lol:

you can discuss religion, politics and global warming only for so long and after a while, reading seems to be a rerun of the same old arguments.....something like the movie Groundhog Day:lol::roll:

 

[CDNBear]

Can Omicron play the role of the groundhog?

I just finished cleaning my 308.

 

[DaSleeper]

Can Omicron play the role of the groundhog?

I just finished cleaning my 308.

That's a bit of overkill ain't it:smile: