Sources used in this document:

Human rights organizations have reported that in spite of official denials throughout the 1980s through the present, the government has initiated political killings, abductions, and armed clashes with the Tamils. Currently, the UN is investigating thousands of unresolved disappearances of innocent civilians there. The separatist resistance group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which formed in opposition to government repression, have also violated human rights and engaged in terrorist acts, mostly within Sri Lankan territory. Nonetheless, it is dangerous and irresponsible for the Canadian government and media to espouse speculative rhetoric that Tamil migrants are terrorist or have links to al-Qaeda.

Like the Tamils of Sri Lanka, the Ghadar was an organization founded by Punjabi Indians in Canada with the aim to liberate India from oppressive British colonial rule. The movement began with a group of immigrants who settled in Canada. It is important to note that migrants and migrants from Southeast Asia have been an integral part of Canada's culture and history for over a century, although they have faced long-standing resentment and prejudice from our white majority. For example, around the time of the 1914 arrival of the Komagata Maru at Vancouver, which carried Indians escaping the oppression of British colonial rule, British Columbia passed stringent laws discouraging Indians from immigrating to Canada. Indians were also denied the right to vote, prohibited to run for public office, serve on juries, and were not permitted to become professionals. Many race-based laws were enacted against Japanese and Chinese nationalities, who were also immigrating in large numbers to abandon challenging circumstances at home. At the same time, however, massive numbers of white European immigrants were welcomed into Canada. White Canadians seemed to specifically fear that darker-skinned people would take their jobs, a fear that may remain today.

However, there is one example of white refugees who were refused entrance into Canada pursuant to anti-Semitic fear in the years leading up to World War II. Approximately 900 German Jews fleeing persecution on 1939 the ship, St. Louis, were forced to return to Europe, where most of the passengers were later killed in Nazi concentration camps.