B.C. prisons brace for Sri Lankan migrants

A Lower Mainland municipality is being advised its prisons could be used to house Sri Lankan migrants on a Thai cargo ship believed to be headed to B.C.

On Monday, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said Ottawa is monitoring the MV Sun Sea, but would not provide specifics.

John Leeburn, spokesman for the District of Maple Ridge, said he has been told the people on board will stay at two Maple Ridge facilities — Fraser Regional Correctional Centre and the Alouette Correctional Centre for Women.

Corrections officers and sheriffs at the prisons have been told to be ready for up to 500 Tamil migrants or refugees in the coming days, most of them men.

Leeburn said it's not clear exactly when the ship might arrive.

"What we were told last week was that the RCMP and [Canada] Border Services would be boarding the vessel offshore, either this week or — it's not clear, but they were boarding the vessel kind of mid-week," he said.

"The first port of call is Victoria and then from there we don't know when they'll be arriving in Maple Ridge."

Officials say there is reason to believe members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, known as the Tamil Tigers, are on the ship. The Tamil Tigers have been outlawed in Canada as a terrorist group since 2006.

Leeburn said the two Maple Ridge prison facilities, east of Vancouver, housed 76 Sri Lankan migrants who arrived last fall on another ship.

The ship was intercepted in Canadian waters in October after crossing the Pacific from Sri Lanka. The group on board the Ocean Lady claimed to be fleeing persecution.

But there were concerns some had links to the Tamil Tigers. The 76 Sri Lankan migrants from that ship have since been released and their refugee claims will be processed over the next two years.