Canadian visa waiver for thousands of Olympic athletes
February 12 2010 by Liam Clifford
Today is the start of the Winter Olympics in Canada, with that comes the announcement that more Canada visas will be available for athletes at the event.
Some 7,000
athletes and team members are to receive special permission to enter Canada
without a Canadian visa in order to allow them to compete in this year's Winter
Olympics.
The event is taking place in Toronto from today and thousands
of people will be allowed to enter the country with special Canadian immigration
passes despite usually needing a Canadian visa.
Although people from many
countries do not need a Canadian visa to travel to Canada for a short period,
people from countries including Pakistan, China, North Korea and Lebanon usually
require a visa.
Instead, they will receive special accreditation,
explains a statement from the Canadian immigration department. It says, “those
who are accredited ... will receive a unique Olympic/Paralympic identity
accreditation card. The (accreditation) also serves as an entry document into
Canada.”
The news follows similar reports that the UK immigration
authority will allow around 20,000 people from visa-required countries to enter
the UK for the 2012 Olympics. They too will be issued with similar accreditation
cards that will act as UK visa waivers for the period of the games.
Each
recipient of the card in Canada was subject to background security checks.
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