We want to reiterate our government's position. It's clear human smuggling is a despicable crime. Not only does it take advantage financially of underprivileged and desperate people but also puts people's lives at risk, Canadian Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said welcoming the news of the arrests of four human smugglers.

RCMP on Tuesday arrested four men in the Toronto area in connection with the MV Ocean Lady that brought 76 illegal migrants to Canada's West Coast
The arrests are the first stemming from investigations into human smuggling networks in Southeast Asia that have sent hundreds of Sri Lankan refugee claimants to Canada aboard two freighters, 'The Province' website reported.

A classified Public Prosecution Service of Canada memo obtained by the National Post says several of the migrants identified the bosses of the ship during interviews with RCMP and Canada Border Services Agency officers.

The Canadian Minister for Public Safety said new legislation planned by the government would help close loopholes in the law and better protect Canada from human smuggling.
"We know that human smugglers are targeting Canada and we need to be prepared," he said. "We want to be able to say to Canadians we have done everything that we can in order to ensure that the appropriate legislative framework is in place."

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said such "large-scale operations" as the one involving the MV Ocean Lady "fundamentally undermine public confidence in the fairness of our immigration and refugee systems, which is why our bill seeks to create deterrents for people becoming customers of the smuggling operations."

Speaking on Parliament Hill, Kenney said people "who seek to arrive in Canada without prior authorization, without having, for example, obtained a visa from a country that requires one and certainly people who pay a criminal organization to be smuggled here on a boat without proper authorization, they're breaking several laws as the charges made in Toronto demonstrate [Tuesday]," Kenney said. "Several laws are being broken both by the smugglers and their customers in coming to Canada illegally."

Anyone convicted of helping more than 10 undocumented migrants enter Canada faces up to life imprisonment and a $1-million fine under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. The Conservatives have drafted a bill that would toughen Canada's antihuman-smuggling policies but it has not yet been made into law.