Canada on Tuesday said that effective that day citizens of St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Namibia, Botswana and Swaziland now require a visa to travel to Canada.
The announcement was made by Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney.
“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.”
A Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) statement said that 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”, the statement said.
CIC said that 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.
“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.
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, CIC said.
