Minister defends anti-smuggling ad Tamil group deems 'xenophobic'

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney is defending his party's use of an ad that a Tamil group has called "xenophobic."


The ad touts the Tories' proposals to crack down on human smuggling and features an image of the cargo ship MV Sun Sea which brought 492 Tamil migrants to B.C. last summer.

"Canada welcomes people who want to build a better future," the announcer says. "But our openness doesn't extend to criminals who target Canadian generosity."

A statement from the National Council of Canadian Tamils on Wednesday said the ad appeals to the "worst instincts of Canadians to score political points and votes" and urged the Tories to remove the ad and to apologize for labelling the asylum-seekers as criminals.

"This election ad is xenophobic and borders on racism," said Krisna Saravanamuttu, a council spokesman.

But Kenney, who spent part of Wednesday morning watching the India-versus-Pakistan cricket match at an East Vancouver restaurant serving South Indian and Sri Lankan cuisine, defended the ad and said the "vast majority" of Canadians support a crackdown on smuggling.

"Anyone who's coming to Canada illegally is breaking our laws. It's illegal migration," he told reporters. "It's not the right way to come to Canada, especially if they're paying a criminal network — a gang of criminals and often thugs — who run the smuggling syndicates.

"We make no apology for making that point in the course of this election campaign," the Conservative candidate added.

Kenney added that there are asylum-seekers around the world waiting to come to Canada through the United Nations Refugee Agency.

"We bring in about 14,000 of those people a year. It's not fair to them if someone in the same region pays a smuggler 50-grand, frankly, to jump the refugee queue."

Following the arrival of the Sun Sea last year, the Tories put forward an anti-smuggling bill, which proposes tougher penalties against human smugglers and more restrictions on migrants who use them. Opposition parties immediately denounced the bill as "draconian" and said it would deprive legitimate refugee-seekers of certain rights.

In the television ad, the Tories accuse the opposition of being "weak on border security."