Ottawa Mandates Visa On All Mexican And Czech Nationals
Canadian diplomats - but not tourists - must meet visa requirements to Mexico
After meeting with Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon, Mexican Foreign Secretary Patricia Espinosa announced that Canadian diplomats assigned to Mexico will need to meet a visa requirement.
This move is in retaliation to Ottawa mandating a visa on all Mexican and Czech nationals traveling to Canada as tourists. The Czech Republic imposed the visa requirements on Canadian diplomats the day before Mexico issued similar travel demands.
Like the Czech Republic, Mexico is not willing to cut into its tourism revenues and excluded Canadian tourists from the visa requirement.
Prague officially announced the visa requirement on Canadian envoys on Thursday through the country's embassy website in Ottawa. As of Wednesday, the portal mentioned only Canadian tourists as being exempt from needing to acquire a visa before entering the Czech Republic, while it was silent on diplomats.
Meanwhile, Alykhan Velshi, the spokesman of Citizenship Minister Jason Kenney, said the minister hinted to the Czech ambassador to Ottawa on June 11 that the federal government of Canada would bring back the visa requirement, and on June 29 personally told the Czech prime minister and interior and foreign ministers of the visa policy change in separate meetings with the three officials.
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Mexican refugee claimants has almost tripled from about 3,400 in 2005 to more than 9,400 in 2008 when Mexicans accounted for more than 25 percent of all refugee claims filed in Canada. What other short term solution do you think would work better? This now forces both governments to sit down and discuss long term solutions. More stats available.
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