News Release — Canada imposes visas on St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Namibia, Botswana and Swaziland

This news release was updated September 12, 2012.

Ottawa, September 11, 2012 — Beginning at 12:01 a.m. EDT today, citizens of St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines (St. Vincent), Namibia, Botswana and Swaziland now require a visa to travel to Canada, Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney announced.

For the first 48 hours, or until 11:59 p.m. September 12, 2012, citizens of these countries who are in transit to Canada at the time the visa requirement takes effect will be able to receive a Temporary Resident Permit on arrival in Canada, free of charge, if they are not otherwise inadmissible to Canada.

"We continue to welcome genuine visitors to Canada," said Minister Kenney. "These changes are necessary to protect the integrity of Canada's fair and generous immigration system by helping us to reduce an unacceptably high number of immigration violations."

These changes will allow Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) and its partners to ensure that those seeking to visit Canada intend to return to their country of origin, rather than overstaying or committing other immigration violations.

A key reason why the government has imposed visa requirements on St. Lucia and St. Vincent is unreliable travel documents. In particular, criminals from these countries can legally change their names and acquire new passports. In some instances, people who were removed from Canada as security risks later returned using different passports. In the case of Namibia, Botswana and Swaziland, human trafficking, especially of minors, and fraudulent documents are of significant concern.

There has also been an unacceptably high number of asylum claims from St. Lucia and St. Vincent, with about one and a half percent and three percent of the population of these countries making asylum claims in Canada over the past five years. The African country that has the highest immigration violation rate is Namibia, with eighty-one percent in 2011. Seventy-one percent of travellers from Namibia made asylum claims in 2011.

"These changes are necessary because all the countries concerned have an immigration violation rate of over thirty percent, well above the level we deem acceptable for countries benefiting from a visa exemption," said Minister Kenney.

Canada regularly reviews its visa requirements toward other countries. Countries are aware that they have a responsibility to satisfy certain conditions to receive a visa exemption.

This visa policy change means that nationals from St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Namibia, Botswana and Swaziland who want to travel to Canada will first need to apply for a visitor visa and meet the requirements to receive one.

It is up to the applicants to satisfy visa officers that their visit to Canada is temporary; they will not overstay their authorized stay; they have enough money to cover their stay; they are in good health; they do not have a criminal record; and they are not a security risk to Canadians. These requirements are the same for anyone who wants to visit Canada.

Applicants from St. Lucia and St. Vincent can now submit their applications by mail or in person to the Canadian visa office in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. Applications will be accepted by the visa office in Pretoria, South Africa, for those from Namibia, Botswana and Swaziland. In the months ahead travellers to Canada will be able to apply online for all temporary visas.

This decision will further strengthen the immigration and asylum systems, and it complements the measures the government is implementing this year under the Protecting Canada’s Immigration System Act, which recently received Royal Assent.

"The Government of Canada remains committed to protecting the integrity of our immigration system and welcoming bona fide visitors from around the world."

News Release — Reducing Backlogs to Achieve a Fast and Flexible Immigration System

The Centre Block on Parliament Hill, containing the houses of the Canadian parliament (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Ottawa, September 17, 2012 —The Government of Canada welcomed the findings of a report on immigration backlogs by the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration and tabled its response in Parliament today.

“I think we can all agree that backlogs are unfair to applicants, harmful to Canada’s ability to attract the best and brightest from around the world, and hold back economic and job growth,” said Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney. “I thank the Standing Committee members for their hard work in compiling their report.”

The Committee commented favourably on what the Government has already achieved to date through the Action Plan for Faster Immigration and the Action Plan for Faster Family Reunification. However, the Committee report also made clear that more needs to be done in order to better align application intake with admission levels.

The committee report recognizes that backlogs have occurred because for too long Canada has accepted more applications than it can process and admit in a given year.  Over time, this annual surplus of applications resulted in a backlog of more than a million applicants, and processing delays of eight to ten years in some immigration categories. The report concluded that, in order to avoid future backlogs, it is critical that the Government act to ensure that the annual number of applications better align with the number of admissions.  The report also recommended exploring further options to deal with the problem of existing backlogs, particularly in the federal skilled worker, immigrant investor, and parent and grandparent classes.

The Government agrees with all of the Standing Committee’s report recommendations and has already acted quickly to tackle application backlogs in key areas. Successes include:

• Reducing the pre-2008 Federal Skilled Worker (FSW) backlog by more than 50 percent by 2011 – two years earlier than expected – through the 2008 Action Plan for Faster Immigration and successive Ministerial Instructions limiting application intake.  Most recently, Economic Action Plan 2012 removed around 280,000 applicants from that FSW backlog, which paves the way for a faster and more flexible economic immigration system;
• Managing intake of the Immigrant Investor Program applications starting in July 2011.  Most recently, a temporary pause on new applications was introduced on July 1, 2012 to allow Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) to focus on processing existing applications and reviewing the program’s effectiveness;
• Significantly decreasing the backlog of applications for parents and grandparents since fall 2011, as a result of increased admission targets and a two-year pause on new applications under the Action Plan for Faster Family Reunification.  At the same time, CIC introduced a new “Super Visa,” which allows for visits of up to two years by parents and grandparents, and has proven to be a popular alternative for applicants.

In the last year, the Government has also launched public online consultations on re-designing the parent and grandparent program, and reforming the Immigrant Investor Program.  Policy work on reformed programs is now underway.

“The economy and job growth remain the Government’s number one priority,” said Minister Kenney. “We continue to take the issue of immigration backlogs very seriously, and we will be doing even more in the future to transform our immigration system into one that is fast, fair, flexible, and serves the interests of Canada’s long-term prosperity.”

The Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration tabled its report, entitled “Cutting the Queue: Reducing Canada’s Immigration Backlogs and Wait Times,” in March 2012.