the CanadaVisa Team - 22 July, 2015
Diane Finley, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Canada, recently announced that citizens of the Czech Republic and Latvia will no longer need visas to visit Canada. The policy is effective immediately and is applicable to visits of 90 days or less.
"We are committed to the free and secure movement of people between the EU and Canada," states Minister Finley. "We are also committed to the objective of visa-exempt status for all EU member states." The move is in response to the European Commission’s recent threats of retaliatory measures if Canada did not remove visa requirements on eight EU nations by the end of the year. Citizens of Bulgaria, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia are still obliged to obtainTemporary Resident Visas (TRV) in order to visit Canada. Citizenship and Immigration Canada will continue to work with these EU member states on a country-by-country basis towards the goal of visa-free travel for all EU citizens as soon as possible.
Canada granted 8,400 TRV’s to Czech and Latvian citizens in 2006 - 7,300 of which went to Czech citizens. The flow of Czech and Latvian visitors will be monitored in order to assess the visa-free decision. In 1997, a year after Canada and the Czech Republic had mutually abolished visas, Canada re-imposed visa restrictions on the Czech Republic because of a flood of asylum seekers.
"We look at the risks and benefits of visa-free travel to Canada, to see if a country warrants having the visa requirement removed," explains Minister Finley. "Canada enjoys strong ties with both of these countries, and lifting the visa requirement will help us build on those relationships to the benefit of Canadians and the citizens of the Republic of Latvia and the Czech Republic."
