B.C. Premier David Eby says laws around immigration and deportation need to change when crime is involved.
Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, Eby said the issue came to a head when two people were arrested in Surrey in connection with extortion and then claimed refugee status.
“And instead of being deported, then being allowed to stay on in the country and have a full refugee hearing,” Eby said.
“Now, I am grateful to immigration refugee protection administrators and others who appear to be expediting this as quickly as possible to be able to address it, but the idea is ludicrous. And somebody involved in functionally, from my perspective, a terror attack in our community that is ongoing, is allowed to claim the benefits of refugee status in our country out of concern being returned to the world’s largest democracy, India — this is absolutely ludicrous.”
Eby said Bill C-12 will close that loophole.
He added that another frustration is that people who have been identified as being involved in the extortion crisis in some way or who have been deported by the Canadian Border Services Agency are not identified under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
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“The reason why this is problematic is if you have someone who is alleged to be involved in these criminal activities,” Eby said.
“You know who they are when you release their picture and their name, the community is able to say, ‘Oh, I saw that person associating with someone else. They were closely associated with this address in our community. They were involved, particularly with this business over here’. This is an investigative lead for you to pursue.”
Eby said he has raised the issue with the federal government and has been assured that work is underway to determine if a certain individual’s name could be released under public safety exemptions.
Eby said he has heard from people living in Surrey that they are afraid to leave their homes, to go to their businesses, they are afraid to celebrate or have a large gathering that may draw attention. Developers are reluctant to share information about buying properties for future developments.
“I also heard stories about families who call in extortion threats, who are not being met with a consistent response, that the response varies, that it may or may not include the level of services that we would all expect when we call police for assistance on this,” Eby said.
He added that he has been assured by Mike Duheme, the Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, that he will be having a meeting this week with Surrey police and the head of the BC RCMP Extortion Task Force, Assistant Commissioner John Brewer, to ensure there is unified communication and a consistent response to the community from both local police and the task force.
“I have been very concerned about inconsistent communications between the task force and the Surrey Police Service to the community,” Eby said.
“These inconsistent communications result in the community feeling that everybody’s not on the same page, that they’re not all working together, that they’re not coordinated on the number one issue in their lives. That is not acceptable.”
Eby said the goal is to deliver what local policing is meant to be for the people of Surrey and they feel that the extortion cases are a top priority.
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