Paul Wells on visa reform

Paul "Inkless" Wells calls for a sensible reform to Canadian visa policies towards several Eastern European nations:

For no clear reason, Canada requires visas for short-term visits, not only for visitors from Estonia, but from six other European Union member states: Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. For most, the delay is a lot shorter than six weeks. But it's a pointless hangover from the Cold War. A hassle Canada imposes on no other Europeans — and which none of the seven countries imposes on Canadian visitors.

Ivar Tallo, incidentally, studied here. In the early 1990s he was a Ph.D. candidate at McGill University. He could return to lecture our senior officials on democratic reform. "Or I might just want to go to my favourite depanneur in Montreal and say hello to the nice Greek guy there. Or have a bagel. I respect and understand your right to have an independent country. But if you want to have friends . . ."

Canada is losing friends in one of the world's most dynamic regions, not through any great misdeed but because of this silly visa restriction. In Bratislava, a half-dozen Canadian businessmen told me Slovaks bend their ears about visas all the time. In Ottawa, a Polish diplomat told me the visa restriction has become the first issue at every meeting. Too often it's also the last issue because our feds can't explain why (a) somebody from France can visit Canada with only a passport; (b) somebody from Poland can visit France with only a passport; (c) that same passport isn't enough for the Pole to visit Canada.

He suggests that the only reason for the restriction still being in place is bureaucratic inertia. I think that's almost always at least part of the reason for silly laws, regulations, and restrictions. Let's hope that he succeeds in bending enough ears in Ottawa to get this policy changed.