anti-immigrant government propaganda you can set your watch by

First think about Bill C-49, the bill the Harper Government calls anti-smuggling, which is actually anti-refugee.

Then read this. From CBC's Inside Politics blog, Hannah Thibedeau reporting.

So a news alert comes across on my computer screen saying, "Thai officials arrest over 100 Tamil migrants heading to Canada."

The newsroom jumps on the story and we try to find out if these people were about to get on a ship to come here.

A call into Immigration Minister Jason Kenney's office points us to stories in the Thai media.

The articles are all in Thai, but we use a handy-dandy translator on the internet to translate them into English.

The Thai media reports there was an arrest of over 100 people. So how do we know they were coming to Canada?

Kenney's office says, "We aren't going to get into details. All I will do is point you to the media articles."

The translated articles say these people were headed to a third country. Then there's a reference to the story of the MV Sun Sea, a ship that arrived on Canadian shores last summer carrying about 500 Tamil asylum seekers.

So all we have is information from the Thai media -- no concrete details from the minister's office.

The Thai embassy here in Canada says it has heard no word from its government about the arrested Thai migrants trying to come to Canada.

How do we know these people were heading to Canada? At this point, we don't.

However, Kenney's office did want to add how important it is that Bill C-49 passes Parliament. That's the Conservative government's proposed bill designed to crack down on human smugglers and illegal immigrants.

Just take our word for it. We're the government. We never lie.