Between 2008 and 2015 several groups of Vietnamese "refugees" were admitted to Canada.
The first group was some mountain minority people who were enticed into Cambodia around 2008 with promises of resettlement. UNHCR did not accept that they were genuine refugees and most accepted the UNHCR-arranged repatriation to Vietnam (UNHCR, 2005).[329] Harper took in a few to prove that Vietnam's minorities are oppressed by communism.
(Little, 2011) [80]
(UNPO, 2011)[390]
An number of other groups consisted of boat people who, during the crisis years, got classified as economic migrants (i.e. refused resettlement) and then refused the UNHCR-arranged repatriation to Vietnam and so voluntarily remained in their countries of first asylum as illegal immigrants.
Jason Kenney took credit for these two groups at the end of a speech he gave in 2015 (Kenney, 2015).[328] In the speech he said that there were an unspecific number from the Philippines and 200 from Thailand. He did not specify in which year they arrived.
There is detailed information about these groups in a discussion that occurred in the Senate and is recorded in Hansard (Canada Senate, 2014).[358] (starting on page 13:15). There were 275 from the Philippines in 2008-09 and 200 from Thailand in 2014. This work was coordinated by the Vietnamese Canadian Federation, so that admissions could not be considered non-partisan, as it was for all other refugees.
These initiatives served to contribute, in a small way, to the government stereotype of the Vietnamese in Canada -- that they are all victims of the fall of Saigon.
One of the arrivals was pictured in the Toronto Star, in an undated photo that was contained inside another story (Keung, 2015).[214]. It was definitely not a non-partisan arrival. This article also vividly illustrates the credibility problem that the media creates for the former boat people in Canada -- if you are not from the fall Saigon you are a nobody.
Some anecdotal reports claim that the people who actually arrived were people who had bought the identities of the stranded individuals. Harper, of course, did not investigate these claims as closely as he investigated the concurrent claims of some Sri Lankan refugees -- the Sri Lankans were not escaping communism. The CBC did, however investigate. (Szeto, Loiero, & Common, 2019).[430]