Katrina victims welcome in Canada

By TOM GODFREY, TORONTO SUN

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Immigration Minister Joe Volpe says the Canadian border is open to U.S. Gulf Coast evacuees who lost everything to Hurricane Katrina.

Volpe said he's notified Canadian immigration officers to help Katrina survivors if they show up at our borders.

"They will be welcomed here," Volpe said yesterday. "Our borders are pretty open should they show up."

Victims will be allowed into the country with less than the usually required documents, he said. U.S. citizens can travel to Canada without a passport and stay for six months without a visa. After six months they must apply for a visa.


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Cdn warships arrive in Florida

PENSACOLA, Fla. (CP) - A hurricane relief convoy of three Canadian warships pulled alongside a pier at a U.S. navy base in Pensacola on Monday after a six-day journey from Halifax.

The ships - HMCS Athabaskan, Toronto and Ville de Quebec - were carrying thousands of tonnes of relief supplies, everything from blankets and diapers to generators. They

will be in port for at least a day before heading farther into the disaster zone left by hurricane Katrina.

Lt.-Cmdr. Elissa Smith of the U.S. navy said the Canadians will likely be employed in shore projects such as cleaning up schools in Gulfport and Biloxi, Miss.

Smith said a Canadian Coast Guard vessel, the icebreaker Sir William Alexander, is en route and will have the task of restoring navigational buoys swept away by Katrina.

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