Inky Mark, who until his defection last week was immigration critic for the Canadian Alliance, supports Lu's bid to stay in Canada.
Kingston city council, at the urging of Councillor Steve Garrison, has asked Caplan to bow to the wishes of the people.
Big labour unions, lik the Canadian Auto Workers and the Ontario Public Servants Employees Untion, have joined those in Canada and abroad in calling on the government to set Lu free.
Caplan, though, won't budge. the prime minister's office won't answer questions about the case, bouncing queries back to Caplan.
THE BRUSHOFF
Finance Minister Paul Martin also brushed off reporters when he was questioned about Lu on a trip to Kingston several weeks ago.
The suggestion has been made that Lu appeal to the ciminal courts to get her manslaughter plea overturned.
But according to the Toronto-based Centre for the Wrongfully Convicted, there isn't much law under which Lu can launch an appeal.
Moreover, a cleansed criminal record won't automatically overturn the deportation order, which was issued on the basis of the guilty plea that was on the table when the order was written.
And a legal appeal costs money.
Lu has already lost her home. The proceeds from her husband's small business pay LeDrew.
A criminal appeal also requires a lawyer who doesn't care whether he or she ever practices law again in Toronto. Overturning Lu's guilty plea means calling into question the quality of the legal advice she received when she pleaded guilty. Her lawyer then, and several other former public defenders who worked on Lu's case in the 1980s, are now sitting judges in Toronto.
GOOD WORKS
LeDrew maintains that the case today isn't about Lu's guilt or innocence. It's about a woman who has, for more than a decade, demonstrated a will to be a contributing, taxpaying member of the community; a woman who does volunteer work, holds a full-time job and is an integral member of her church congregation.
It's about a woman who has paid dearly for a crime, whether she committed one or not.
Neither is Caplan interested in whether Lu is guilty or innocent. In the minister's view, Lu pleaded guilty once and must therefore be deported.
The cost to Canadian taxpayers of continuing this legal battle over a single immigrant is as impossible to decipher as the minister's response to the few citizens fortunate enough to receive one.
Caplan told Kingston resident James St. Denis, one of Lu's supporters who have received a response, that the hubbub surrounding the case is the media's fault.