Tories to present refugee bill

The federal government will present new legislation on Thursday aimingto curb the number of refugee claimants arriving on Canada's shores, CBC News has learned.

The Conservative governmentfirstraised the possibility of new laws in Augustfollowing the arrival in British Columbia of 492 Tamil migrants on theSun Sea.

In a speechTuesday afternoon at a citizenship ceremony in Ottawa, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said the governmentwill introduce "strongnew laws"to counter the "deeply disturbing trends" of mass arrivals through human smuggling"designed to jump the queue and work around the system."

The new laws "will provide strong incentives to turn those who want to live in Canada away from that behaviour and toward the legitimate channels ofentry which you have pursued," Harper told the audience, without providinganydetails about the legislation.

If the government failed to act, Harper warned that Canadians would lose confidence in the system, which would inevitably lead to a "massive collapse" in public support for immigration.

The new legislationcomes amid reports of at least one other vessel carrying human cargo preparing to depart from Southeast Asia for Canadian waters.

Shortly after the arrival of theSun Sea in August, the prime minister insisted Canada isa"land of refuge," butthe "abnormal" arrival of a ship carrying migrants creates "significant security concerns" the government has a responsibility to handle.

As a signatory to the UN Convention on Refugees, Canada must process all refugee claimants who reach Canadian soil.

Representatives ofthe Tamil migrants said they were fleeing persecution after the country's bloody 26-year civil war between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers.

The Tamil Tigers were defeated in May 2009 and a recent UN report states thatTamils need no longer be presumed to be fleeing imminent harm in Sri Lanka.