Pubdate: Fri, 15 Dec 2006 Source: Intelligencer, The (CN ON) Copyright: 2006, Osprey Media Group Inc. Contact: http://www.intelligencer.ca/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2332 SEND CRIMINALS PACKING AT FIRST OPPORTUNITY When critics of the immigration policies of Canada need evidence to expose the problems with our system, they may not have to look much farther than a local court case. It involved the recent sentencing of a Vietnamese national, in Canada sufficiently long enough to hook up with several other men and establish a marijuana growing operation - or grow-op. Khoa D. Tran, of Toronto, pleaded guilty in a Belleville criminal court recently to a single count of production of cannabis marijuana for the purpose of trafficking. Tran spent 87 days in pre-trial custody, and will remain in custody at the request of Canadian immigration officers. Justice Geoff Griffin imposed a joint submission consisting of a one-year conditional sentence in the community. The first six months will be spent under house arrest. Tran will be allowed to leave home to attend school or work, medical or dental appointments, for religious purposes, and two hours a week to get groceries. Tran will be subject to a police door-knock policy. He's not allowed to possess equipment or fertilizer which might be suitable for growing cannabis, and is not to associate with anyone, or be anywhere, as directed by his supervisor of conditional sentences. After the six-month house arrest Tran is subject to a 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew. He's on probation for two years during which he must make a $5,000 charitable donation. He's also subject to a 10-year weapons ban. Tran, not surprisingly - on learning of the comparatively lenient sentence he was given, considering he could have significantly more severe penalties for growing marijuana in his native Vietnam - told the judge through an interpreter he'd like to remain in Canada. Justice Griffin then informed Tran that as a result of his sentence calling for house arrest and because he's been ordered to remain under house arrest, he gets to stay longer in Canada. "The irony here is that by giving you a conditional sentence you'll likely be able to stay in Canada longer than otherwise might happen. If I said seven days (in jail) immigration would likely have you back on a plane to Saigon." Surely, a conviction for having been in the country barely long enough to meet up with other narcotics entrepreneurs and to tend a three-acre pot plot in Tweed and his subsequent arrest would mean the likes of Tran should indeed be put "back on a plane to Saigon." But, it's a sad and somewhat strange commentary on our justice and immigration systems that Tran's transgressions of the laws of this country permit him to stay here long enough to serve a reasonably light sentence - even considering his 87 days in custody, a stretch imposed only at the urging of immigration officials. Did Tran's activities - the growing and harvesting of three acres of pot - in any way reflect the actions of a person who has an earnest desire to be a contributing member of society in Canada? We think not. We would suggest Tran and anyone else who finds illicit drug production as a way to bide their time while awaiting citizenship should find their visa invalidated post-haste and, in the words of the learned judge, "back on a plane" to wherever they came from. There are far too many honest, hard-working people who want to come to Canada and attain citizenship than to allow the likes of Tran to be rewarded with citizenship through the jailhouse door. - --- MAP posted-by: Amy