Dozens of men found aboard a rusty vessel that arrived off the coast of Vancouver Island may soon know if they can apply for refugee status.

Detention hearings are expected to begin as early as today for the 76 men, who are being held in a Vancouver jail.

It is believed the men found aboard the "Ocean Lady" are from Sri Lanka, though officials have not identified the passengers or the reason for their journey.

Reports suggest the would-be immigrants may have each paid US$45,000 for the trip. That report comes from passengers on another ship carrying Sir Lankans that was caught off the coast of Australia last week.

The passengers there said they had paid smugglers $15,000 to board the ship and some told reporters they had wanted to board the "Ocean Lady" instead, but it was too expensive, at $45,000 per person.

The "Ocean Lady" may be part of a network of vessels carrying desperate asylum seekers to Western nations. Several vessels carrying Sri Lankans, Afghans and other Asian nationals have been intercepted in the Pacific Ocean.

Nick Noorani of Canadian Immigrant Magazine says if the reports are true, the would-be Canadian immigrants could be in for a lifetime of paying off their debt.

"Many likely didn't pay cash. Sometimes what happens is after they arrive and start earning money, their wages will get garnished to pay off the people who smuggled them in. So they're paying money for forever," he explained to Canada AM Tuesday.

Noorani noted that under Canadian immigration law, an asylum seeker taken into custody must be given a detention hearing within 48 hours. They will then have to make an application for refugee status and wait three to six months for a hearing. The refugee status approval process itself is months longer.

"The hearings are really complicated because they will look into whether these people have any criminal records, whether they were members of the Tamil Tigers, and the Immigration and Refugee Board will determine if they are genuine refugees," Noorani said from Vancouver.

"The process to ascertain whether they have genuine needs or not is going to be a fairly lengthy one."

Officials for the Canadian Tamil Congress say they believe the men are Tamils fleeing what they say is persecution that has enveloped Sri Lanka after a decades-long civil war against the Tamil Tigers finally ended.

After Sri Lankan armed forces crushed the Tigers last May, Tamils say they are now treated like second-class citizens, even if their involvement with the Tigers was forced, as it often was. Civilian Tamils were also caught in the clash, and nearly 300,000 remain held in an internment camp in northern Sri Lanka.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney told The Globe and Mail Monday that the migrants' illegal arrival highlights the growing problem of human smuggling.

Kenney added his government has noted that asylum claims have increased by almost 70 per cent over the past two years, and he says Canada's acceptance rate of about 40 per cent is about twice that of other developed nations.

"We don't want to develop a reputation of having a two-tier immigration system - one tier for legal, law-abiding immigrants who patiently wait to come to the country, and a second tier who seek to come through the back door, typically through the asylum system," Kenney told the Globe in an interview.

"We need to do a much better job of shutting the back door of immigration for those who seek to abuse that asylum system."

Noorani says what's needed from the federal government is compassion, not door-shutting.

"I agree with what Mr. Kenney says that we should not have a two-tier system. But at the same time, we have to keep abreast of what's happening in the rest of the world," Noorani said.

"The situation in northern Sri Lanka is such that a number of people are leaving the country and trying to find a better home. We as a nation have agreed, according to the UN charter, that we will give asylum to people who have come from war-ravaged countries and who are in scenarios that are life-threatening."

Noorani added that even if the way these migrants arrived here isn't ideal, it doesn't mean the men don't have a fair case for refugee status.

"There's no difference here. The only difference is the method in which they came. If we had selected them in Sri Lanka, that would've been okay," Noorani said.

"I look at it from the perspective that these people are not actually criminals. These people are victims. They're victims of circumstance. They're as much victims of circumstance as someone we allow in from Somalia or Afghanistan.

"...These people are not different. We have to treat them with the same compassion and respect that Canada is known for globally. We have to look and find out if there is a genuine case for refugee and then proceed accordingly," Noorani said.