Dear Editor,

The recent arrival of nearly 500 Tamil migrants on Canada’s west coast after a three-month voyage is troubling for both them and this country. This is not the first time that Tamil refugees have come here by ship and it won’t be the last as more ships loaded with immigrant Tamil refugees are expected to land on Canadian shores, according to our government.

There is a lot wrong with this method of achieving landed immigrant status in this country. It is costly and unfair to Canada. How can people board a ship, suffer for three months on the open seas, arrive on our shores and then expect Canadians to harbor them for life? Worse yet, Canadians are often expected to take up the battle they left.

It is time for Canada and the U.S. to get out of wars they should never have entered and can’t win. It is time for both countries to cool the troubled waters with strong doses of diplomacy leading to more peaceful settlements of disruptions in other countries, if we are to become involved at all. It is also time for our government to draw a hard line on migrant immigrants. As long as we keep taking them in they will keep on coming while others are left to go through the normal channels of a lengthy immigration process before they can come to Canada. How is that fair?

Larry Birkbeck
Regina