JANE ARMSTRONG

Saturday, July 22, 2000

Vancouver -- The two women arrived in Canada last summer on a crowded, filth-strewn trawler in a storybook flight for freedom. Today, both women are still in Canada, but only one got the happy ending.

Hui Hua Huang and Qing Ying Wu (not their real names) were among almost 600 Chinese people who arrived on the West Coast by boat last year as part of a tidal wave of illegal migration.

Like hundreds of their compatriots, they fled China to attempt a new start in North America.

Ms. Huang, 37, won her high-stakes immigration gamble. Last month, she was granted refugee status and she now lives in a downtown Vancouver apartment with another female Chinese migrant. She is looking for a job and making plans to bring her husband and children to Canada.

"This is a free country and I am very grateful to be here," she said through an interpreter in an interview last week.

For Ms. Wu, also 37, the dream of a new life has been shattered. Her refugee claim has been rejected and she has been ordered deported. She is in custody at the Burnaby Correctional Centre for Women just outside Vancouver.

"I have been here for a whole year," Ms. Wu said in an interview in the centre's visitors lounge. "I haven't had one taste of freedom."

Dressed in a yellow, prison-issue T-shirt and khaki pants, she cast longing looks out the floor-to-ceiling windows and wiped tears from her eyes as she described her desire to stay in Canada.

"If they send me back to China, for sure I will get on a boat and come here again," Ms. Wu said. "Because I believe that Canada is a country with democracy and human rights. And they will accept me eventually."

In separate interviews, Ms. Huang and Ms. Wu spoke about their flight to Canada. Both appeared nervous about speaking publicly. Ms. Huang's hands trembled. Ms. Wu wept frequently.

They said they don't want to reveal their identities because they are afraid of repercussions against their families from Chinese authorities and snakeheads who organized their illegal journey.

July 20 marked the first anniversary of the arrival of the first boat, which was intercepted by a Canadian Coast Guard cutter off Vancouver Island near Gold River.

The boat carrying Ms. Wu and Ms. Huang was chased down on Aug. 11 by another Coast Guard cutter. By September, two more fishing boats laden with human cargo had sailed into Canadian waters.

All told, 599 migrants were plucked from illegal boats last summer. A year later, the vast majority of those migrants find themselves in the same boat as Ms. Wu. Their high-seas bid for a new life has been a dismal failure. Most made refugee claims, but only 16 have been successful.

Among Canadians, there was more anger than compassion for the onslaught of migrants. Despite the claimants' heart-rending tales of limited freedom and hardship in China, many Canadians concluded that the migrants were economic opportunists -- not refugees fleeing state-sponsored persecution.

"They are clearly not real refugees," said Leon Benoit, the Canadian Alliance's immigration critic. "Not in the real sense of the word."

Repeating a sentiment voiced often by those in favour of deporting the migrants en masse, Mr. Benoit said Canada should have been tougher with the migrants from the get-go. They should have been sent home within weeks of their arrival, he said.

Instead, the tab for the boat people's incarceration and processing costs have soared to $36-million.

However, the migrants' supporters say Canada acted in a shameful manner by imprisoning and then rejecting most of the migrants' claims for refugee status. They say Canada made scapegoats of the boat people in a bid to look tough to the world.

"History will show that we had choices and Canada made the wrong choice," said Victor Wong, executive director of the Vancouver Association of Chinese Canadians. "The children of the [migrants permitted to stay] will be here to tell their stories. And you'll find their stories are no different than the history of immigration in Canada."

Immigration lawyer Doug Canon agreed. He said Canada has criminalized and incarcerated a group of people whose only crime was desperation. He noted that it is extremely rare for immigration authorities to seek to jail refugee claimants.

Authorities jailed the boat people because they were a large, visible, unwieldy group, Mr. Canon argued. And politicians got nervous.

More than 2,400 Chinese migrants showed up at various ports of entry last year and claimed refugee status. The preferred route was via airports. The vast majority of those claimants were released.

Mr. Canon said immigration authorities successfully sought the incarceration of the boat people because they were a political hot potato -- not a flight risk.

On that point, Immigration Department officials disagree. They say the boat people posed a high risk of flight. Indeed, 128 of 168 migrants released have gone missing.

Mr. Canon also took exception to suggestions that the boat people are not genuine refugees. Harassment and persecution are still facts of life for millions of people in China, he said, especially women who choose to have more than one or two children.

The fact that Ms. Huang's story won her a legal standing in Canada while Ms. Wu's similar background failed the refugee test reveals the arbitrary nature of Canada's refugee system, Mr. Canon said.

Getting to Canada -- and being permitted to stay -- requires as much luck and serendipity as it does money or credentials.

Both Ms. Huang and Ms. Wu argued that they had been victimized by China's one-child policy.

Ms. Huang is married with two children, a daughter, 16, and a son, 15. Her son is mentally and physically disabled. For that reason, she and her husband wanted a third child. In China, boys are regarded as assets that will provide for parents in their old age. Girls are liabilities.

In her testimony, Ms. Huang said village officials came to her house in her third month of pregnancy, took her to a hospital and forced her to have an abortion. She was fined the equivalent of about $3,000 and later ordered to have a tubal ligation.

In addition, Ms. Huang said, she is a practising Christian who was often harassed by village authorities. Once, they burst into her church and smashed windows and doors, she said.

In her statement, Ms. Huang said she was more free to practise her religion in jail in Canada than she ever was in China.

The adjudicator who heard her case believed that she would be persecuted for practising her religion if she returned to China.

Ms. Wu's story was similar. She is now divorced with a daughter, 16, and a son, 14. After the birth of her daughter, her village committee ordered her to have an IUD inserted. Ms. Huang removed it and soon gave birth to a boy.

After that, she said, authorities forced her husband to have a vasectomy. But it didn't work and three months later, she was pregnant again.

This time, the village authorities came for her, forced to have an abortion and sterilized her. The family was fined the equivalent of about $3,000.

She said her husband blamed her for the forced operations. Eventually, he left. Because of the fine, Ms. Wu pulled her daughter from school because she could no longer afford tuition.

In her refugee claim, Ms. Wu said China's family planning authorities made her life a "misery."

"My marriage would have survived if not for the family planning policy," she said. "My daughter would not suffer from not attending school. My husband wouldn't fight with me and lead to divorce. My daughter wouldn't be left alone with me trying to make a new life in Canada -- if not for the family planning policy."

The adjudicator in Ms. Wu's case rejected her application, arguing that because Ms. Wu had already been sterilized, there wasn't much more hardship family planning officials could inflict on her.

Ms. Wu disagreed. As a divorced woman, she said, she now faces a life of poverty. She will be fined for illegally leaving the country. She won't be able to pay it so she will be jailed for another year.

"It's hard to find a second husband," Ms. Wu said. "That's also a reason why I left. If they send me back, I'll have no place to live. It's so hard to be a human being there, so hard to make a living.

"Here in Canada, they stress that women and children are the most important things in society," Ms. Wu continued. "In China, that's not so. Males and females are not treated equally."

During the interview, Ms. Wu repeated several times that she is a good tailor and is willing to work hard.

She also appeared unable to comprehend why Canadian authorities were unwilling to release the boat people.

"We never thought that after we got to a such a country of democracy and freedom that we would be suffering again in this kind of misery.

"It's the most unforgettable experience in our lives, this time in prison. We want to do the same as any person wants to do: work for our country and pay taxes.

"The fact that we are kept in here for one year -- it's the most difficult thing to accept."


Jane Armstrong is a member of The Globe and Mail's British Columbia bureau.

BY THE NUMBERS

599    Number of Chinese migrants who came to Canada by boat last year





576    Number of migrants who claimed refugee status





501    Number of claims completed





168    Number of migrants released from custody





128, including 32 minors    Number of warrants issued for missing migrants





106    Number of migrants deported





16    Number of migrants with successful refugee claims





403    Number of rejected refugee claims





75    Number of claimants waiting for a ruling





67    Number of abandoned claims





15    Number of claims withdrawn





256    Number of migrants incarcerated





$36-million    Cost of processing and incarcerating the migrants

Source: Citizenship and Immigration Canada

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