OTTAWA IMPORTS DRUG DEALERS AND TAXPAYERS PAY THE PRICE

One Mayor Invoices Ottawa Monthly, Without Success

Vancouver's personable mayor, Philip Owen, says the cost to city
taxpayers as a result of Ottawa's immigration and refugee policies is
"staggering." And he aims to quantify just how expensive the influx
of foreigners is for taxpayers.

His remarks, made in a recent interview, follow comments made by
Mississauga, Ont., Mayor Hazel McCallion, who was jumped all over by
special interest groups. She pointed out that Ottawa's immigration
and refugee policies have let in many undesirables and deadbeats and
have become a costly burden for the education and health-care systems.

Her city was the first to quantify the cost of welfare payments to
refugee claimants (who may or may not be legit refugees), as well as
to sponsored immigrants whose relatives renege on supporting them.
Every month she sends an invoice for millions to Ottawa for this
cost. The invoices have never been paid.

"Let's find the numbers and see what it is," said Mayor Owen in a
recent interview with me. "It would be staggering, I'm sure, because
I know the police service costs dealing with this
[immigration/refugee] issue."

The problem is not immigration or helping refugees. Good immigration
is good for Canada.

But Ottawa has never justified its target figure of 250,000 a year,
in my opinion. This is twice the level of U.S. immigration. Worse
yet, half these people are sponsored immigrants without
qualifications to enter Canada.

Other countries adjust their numbers based on need. This target
explains two facts: unemployment is higher in Canada and despite huge
immigration we face a shortage of skilled workers.

Another problem facing Vancouver and other cities is that refugees
are let into Canada who aren't really refugees. We don't screen them.
The result is Ottawa every year imports into our society people with
dangerous, infectious diseases. Last year alone, estimates are that
Ottawa turned loose on the unsuspecting public more than 200
"refugees" with AIDS and more than 500 with non-treatable
tuberculosis. Treatments cost our health care system millions per
patient.

Vancouver has suffered from a specific "refugee" problem over the
past few years: an army of bogus refugee claimants from Honduras
smuggled into Canada by the Colombian and Mexican drug cartels. (Why
would we accept as refugees teenagers from peaceful, democratic
Honduras who arrive on foot or by car from the United States?)

"We know with the Honduran problem that the drug cartels were
bringing up 13- and 15-year-olds to be mules and pushers," said the
mayor.

Hundreds came into Canada and few have been deported, according to
police sources. They live on welfare payments and illegal drug
receipts, spreading their "product" beyond the city's slummier
drug-infested neighborhood.

"They would deport them and they would come back three and four
times," said the mayor, who has undertaken a unique and constructive
battle against drug usage in his city.

Others allowed into Canada include members of Chinese triads and
Vietnamese gangs, plus bikers from south of the border who are
involved in the drug business in Vancouver and elsewhere.

Mayor Owen -- like Mayor McCallion, myself and other
immigration/refugee policy critics -- is not opposed to letting
people come into Canada. He's concerned about costs without benefits
and the fact that Ottawa has imported drug traffickers, does not
punish them and does not deport them.

Mayor Owen and his council have undertaken some of the most
progressive drug programs and have Canada's only drug policy
co-ordinator. He has undertaken educational programs, support for
police efforts and been outspoken against judges who hand down light
sentences for serious drug crimes.

But he's not a law-and-order fanatic. The United States is and users
clutter the jails of that country.

"You can't incarcerate your way out of this problem and you can't
liberalize you're way out of it either," he said. "The user is sick
and the pusher is evil. You can't ignore it. And we're trying to do
something about it. But we need help from the other levels of
government. And letting in drug dealers and not deporting them is
part of the problem."