The following scenario is purely imaginary. After a months-long sea crossing in a leaky converted freighter, more than 400 people from a nation wracked by terrorism and civil war land on Canada's shores.

They immediately claim refugee status. They come from a country that has seen a long and violent conflict. They are essentially on the losing side. They worry about further violence if they return home.

While many of those on board are women and children, some may be members of a foreign terrorist organization.

What does our government do? That depends. My imaginary boat comes from Northern Ireland, circa 1985. But it may have called to mind a boat that just arrived on our shores from Sri Lanka. I'm having a hard time imagining a boat of English-speaking white Irish-Catholics getting the same vicious reception that the Tamils have received since they arrived.

The level of racism in the debate over the Tamils is hard to measure. It's veiled behind rhetoric about refugees "jumping the queue" and talk about them becoming freeloaders on Canada's welfare system.

The terrorism charge is the one the government has jumped on with both feet. Apparently, to have ever been a member of or soldier for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam is also to be a terrorist.

Of course, the Tamil Tigers committed a great many terrorist crimes, including pioneering the use of suicide bombing. (That's where the Palestinian Intifada got the idea.) They also committed political assassinations, both in Sri Lanka and in India. The Tigers also forcibly conscripted children, attacked religious targets and engaged in piracy and arms smuggling.

But they ran a good portion of northeastern Sri Lanka as a de facto independent country for decades. So the Tamil Tigers organization contains vicious monsters, and it also contains people who worked for the monsters and looked the other way so they and their families could survive. That the Sri Lankan government might not make fine distinctions between the two types of Tigers is a legitimate concern.

So there may be terrorists on board the boat, and they should be found and deported to face justice for their crimes. But like determining who in Northern Ireland is an IRA bomber, who an IRA supporter, and who an accomplice out of fear, it will not be easy.

The odd notion that the Tamil migrants are trying to jump the queue should also be discarded.

As Stephen Hume pointed out in a recent Vancouver Sun column, there are two routes to becoming a refugee in Canada: You can get there from a refugee camp, or you can show up and say you would suffer persecution if returned home.

The Sri Lankan government has been dismantling refugee camps since the war ended; it's an open question whether persecution has ceased and one that will likely determine the refugees' fate.

Finally, the notion of freeloading is also interesting. A lot of fury has surrounded the idea that these are only "economic migrants," that they just want a better life, with things like clean water, good jobs and nice homes.

Well, how dare they! Those things are clearly for those of us who were already here and inherited them without doing a lick of work settling this country.

But of course, perhaps I'm biased. Aside from the recent arrivals from America, none of my family members ever applied for permission to come to Canada. I don't think they ever asked the Sto:lo, Algonquin, Six Nations or Cree people for immigration forms.

Matthew Claxton is a reporter for the Langley Advance, a sister paper of The Record.