Canadians consider spy to combat people smuggling
MICHAEL CHUGANI in Seattle
Senior Canadian officials, alarmed by the success of people-smugglers, had considered asking Beijing to plant a Chinese spy in Canada to combat the illegal trade, internal government documents have revealed. Officials put forward the controversial proposal after a flood of mainland migrants reached the Canadian west coast aboard rusty ships in the summer of 1999.
Other classified documents showed Beijing had angrily lectured Canada for granting political asylum to some mainland migrants. Chinese officials told a visiting Canadian delegation in 1999 that Canada's offer of sanctuary to those it considered genuine asylum seekers amounted to a criticism of China's human rights and demographic policies, which they said were internal matters.
The documents were made available to the South China Morning Post by Vancouver-based immigration lawyer Richard Kurland, who had obtained them through Canada's access to information laws.
Parts of the documents considered too sensitive were blacked out by Canadian authorities.
Mr Kurland said he was startled by the Canadian Immigration Ministry's proposal that a Chinese spy be stationed at its Ottawa headquarters. "That would mean having a back door open for China to gain access to US intelligence data," he said.
The spy idea was contained in a paper on how to improve relations with the mainland put forward by the Canadian Immigration Ministry in late 1999.
A spokesman for the ministry said the proposal was never carried out, but Mr Kurland said there was no way to prove this one way or the other.
The paper said Canadian officials fighting people smuggling needed to nurture guanxi or personal connections with Chinese officials, but stressed this would take a long time, which meant that Canada might never be able to deport all mainland migrants not accepted as refugees.
Other documents made available to the Post include an intelligence paper warning that Canada was being used as a landing point by international crime rings to smuggle "large numbers" of Chinese migrants into North America. "International criminals are undermining our national borders at the same time as they exploit our humane refugee policies to their advantage," the paper said.
It warned that closer trade ties with China following its entry to the World Trade Organisation would at the same time make it harder for Canada to criticise Beijing's human rights behaviour. It said Canada could risk its commercial interests by taking Beijing to task on contentious issues.
Other documents revealed the mainland faced hurdles in smashing human-smuggling rings as the top snakeheads lived mostly outside China and were nationals of other countries.