Ship carrying Tamil migrants docked
Posted Aug 13, 2010 8:34 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The MV Sun Sea has arrived at CFB Esquimalt in Victoria carrying almost 500 Sri Lankan Tamils looking for refugee status.
RCMP Mounties are on board along with hundreds of Tamils, some women and children and many are sick with reports of tuberculosis.
Ottawa has been tracking the ship for three months since it left Thailand and says there are also human smugglers and terrorists on board. They will be taken into custody and processed, but digging up a criminal history on anyone who hasn’t set foot in Canada will be a difficult process.
Security and terrorism expert, David Harris, says it will be a lengthy and expensive one as well. “It could take years of struggle and without the least exaggeration, millions of our taxpayer’s dollars to even get near the question. Once people do set foot, they’re generally entitled to taxpayed lawyers and proceedings.”
Anyone who needs treatment will be taken to hospital in Victoria or to women’s and children’s hospitals in Vancouver.
