Minister Jason Kenney under fire after Canadian visa reforms

This week’s decision by the Canadian government to place visa requirements on Mexico and the Czech Republic has caused controversy and feuding between the three countries and beyond. 

A Mexican government in uproar and Czech prime minister, Jans Fischer vowing to impose retaliatory visa sanctions on Canadian visitors, while promptly whipping his Canadian ambassador out of the country. Canada must be regretting they ever tried to tackle the issue of immigration. 

As the 27-country European Union ambled into the debate, scornful of Canada’s actions, the Canadian government must have been itching to close its borders and ears to the world, never mind a few false-form-filling migrants.

You’ve got to feel for an increasingly confused and under pressure Canada. Their immigration problem has rumbled on for more than a decade. No one yet has been able to get the balance quite right between opening its doors to legitimate refugees and dealing with illegal immigrants.

After Jason Kenney’s promise that there will be even more reforms aimed at tackling the Canadian immigrationproblem, it would seem that Canadian genorisity is being stretched by the desperation of migrants abusing the system to seek a better life.

The only winners in the battle between Canada and its border intakes appear to be to those who are cynically abusing the Canadian immigration system. These people are illegitimately claiming to be political refugees but are economic parasites intent on attaining only personal gain.

Canadian journalist James Travers, writing in The Star, warns of the problems these opportunists bring. He writes: “By slipping through border policy fissures, they jump long queues waiting in the world’s worst places. Once landed, they clog a layered bureaucracy with false claims and take advantage of not-today-maybe-tomorrow deportation practices to stay, sometimes forever.”

As Canada stands firm on visa requirements, it is innocent refugees and tourist visitors to the country who will suffer greatest.

Will the new Canadian visa laws be enough to deter migrants filling in false statements and making illegitimate claims to secure easy passage into Canada?

Was this week’s reaction by Czech Republic and Mexico excessive in the light of recent Canadian immigration figures?

Has the latest Canadian visa reform improved the country’s reputation as an immigration ‘soft-touch’? 

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