by Ryan Walker

A united community voice in support of cancelling Lucy Lu's deportation order to China is having little impact on the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, Elinor Caplan.

"The Minister hasn't really changed her position," said Derik Hodgson, a spokesperson for Minister Caplan, when asked if the Minister had changed her stance in light of the public outcry around this issue.

Lu, a local shoe-store clerk and long-time member of the Kingston community, has been resisting a deportation order since November 21, taking sanctuary in the Calvary Bible Church. Immigration officials are respecting the sanctuary of the Kingston church. Lu has not set foot outside of her sanctuary for over five months. If she does, she'll be arrested and deported to China.

About her sanctuary in the church, Lu says that: "It's better than being in prison. I don't have my freedom, but the people here are very caring and loving. The hard thing for me is that I can't make a living to support myself."

Kingston Mayor, Isabel Turner, spoke favourably about the action taken by the local church to shelter a community member.

"I was quite impressed when I saw that happening. And I'm impressed that the [federal] government is respecting it."

Lu's deportation order was issued in 1990 while she was serving a prison sentence for manslaughter, a charge she pleaded guilty to during her third trial for the murder of her husband. The first and second trials ended in a hung jury and mistrial respectively. Considerable doubt has been raised about the circumstances under which her plea was given. Lawyers, law enforcement officers, and journalists have come forward to express that she was perhaps not guilty of the murder, or the lesser charge of manslaughter. Her deportation order to China rests on her guilty plea.

In the Kingston Whig-Standard (March 10, 2001), reporter Annette Phillips tells of her search through the Lucy Lu trial transcripts, arguing that the police work and legal action were suspect, and that Lu's plea to manslaughter may have been made under duress. In the article, one of the police officers who advised Lu to plead guilty to manslaughter noted that he regrets advising her to take the plea bargain, and that "nobody really believes Lucy did it." Once she was released on parole, Lu was granted annual work permits by Immigration Canada for 10 years. Then last November, one month after being wed to local contractor Daryl Gellner, and shortly after her work permit had been renewed, Lu's deportation order was finally enacted. She received a letter from Immigration Canada telling her she had to leave Canada in two weeks.

Lu's fight to remain in Kingston is attracting a growing list of supporters, including several national and provincial labour unions, local police officers, university students and professors, the clergy, media people, the mayor of Kingston, and local MP Peter Milliken, Speaker of the House of Commons.

"She'd be a good citizen in Canada, and being here this long, she has the right to stay," said Milliken. "She has paid her debt to society with her prison sentence. She should be admitted on humanitarian and compassionate grounds."

If deported to China, "there is a very strong reason to believe she could be retried and China's past record shows that typically, execution is the penalty for this type of crime," says Queen's University human rights and immigration expert, Dr. Audrey Kobayashi.

The threat of a death sentence has not deterred Minister Caplan from returning people to China in the past. Last year Fang Yong was sent back to China by Canadian authorities where he was executed. He had been accused in China of computer fraud. Although the Chinese government gave assurances to Canadian authorities that Fang would receive no more than 10 years in jail, he was executed shortly after his return. Although the circumstances around this case and Lu's are not identical, the point is that the Canadian government is not deterred by concerns over basic human rights such as the right to life, liberty, and security of person (Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights).

When asked why it has taken 10 years to enact the deportation in Lu's case, Giovanna Gatti, a spokesperson for Minister Caplan, stated that, "travel documents and arrangements take time, and the deportation order stands during those preparations."

After 10 years, one might ask whether it is time to re-evaluate the process to determine whether any purpose is really being served through deportation. In Lucy Lu's case, the Kingston community is saying that the deportation order is not serving a purpose.

"By refusing to engage in any dialogue on this issue, Elinor Caplan is thumbing her nose at a very broad range of the Kingston community," says Dr. Bob Stock, co-ordinator of the development studies program at Queen's University. "This issue is overwhelmingly about Lucy Lu, but it's also about the government's lack of accountability to this community."

There appear to be three main components to this deportation issue. First, there is a legal issue. Immigration Canada has issued the deportation order based on Lu's guilty plea to manslaughter. However, there is considerable doubt around her guilt in the first place. Second, and most fundamentally, there is a human rights issue. Whether she is guilty of manslaughter or not, to deport her to China would be a human rights violation on the part of the Canadian government. Third, it has taken over 10 years to enact the deportation order. During that time, Lucy Lu has rooted herself in the community that she wishes to call home. The Kingston community supports that wish.

As Mayor Turner has suggested, "this must be resolved through talking."

This issue will not be resolved without dialogue between Lucy Lu, her supporters, and Minister Caplan. Lu and her supporters will continue attempts at dialogue, but to this point, the channels have remained closed.

Join the growing network of Lucy Lu's supporters by contacting Lucy Lu and Daryl Gellner at (613) 539-4644 or dlgellner@ihorizons.net. Sign Lucy Lu's petition on her web-site, www.lucylu.net, and write to the Hon. Elinor Caplan, Minister of Citizenship & Immigration; Prime Minister Jean ChrŽtien; the Hon. Peter Milliken, MP Kingston and the Islands; and the Hon. Inky Mark, MP Dauphin-Swan River (opposition critic for citizenship & immigration). Letters to these politicians can be addressed to the House of Commons, Ottawa, ON, K1A 0A6. No postage required.

Ryan Walker is a doctoral student in geography at Queen's University, and a member of the World University Service of Canada, Queen's Local Committee. He can be reached at (613) 533-6000, ext. 75941, or 9rcw1@qlink.queensu.ca