[lg policy] Canada ’s Refugee-Driven Visa Policy: Unfriendly to Czechs, Lacking in Balances

[Harold Schiffman]

Canada’s Refugee-Driven Visa Policy: Unfriendly to Czechs, Lacking in Balances

Posted on August 2, 2009 by corsullivan

The Czechs are clearly unimpressed with Jason Kenney’s decision to
require them to get visas if they want to visit Canada. An article in
the English-language Prague Post describes Czech travellers as
“shocked” by the new rule, and quotes one woman as saying that she now
feels “like an unwanted visitor”. Another sore point is the fact that
applications have to go to Vienna for processing:

A spokesman for the Association of Czech Travel Agents, Jan Papež,
criticized Canada for not providing the visa service in Prague. “It
degrades the status of our country to a banana republic. I don’t
understand why the Canadians have such an enormous embassy here if
they are not going to provide any service to our citizens.”

The talk of degradation and feelings of being unwanted does strike me
as a bit of an overreaction. I had to get a visa before coming to
China, and the scientists and students I work with in Beijing apply
for visas as a matter of course before making trips in the opposite
direction. It’s a pain in the neck, but it’s a relatively normal part
of life in the global village.

With that said, it was clumsy of Uncle Jason to deal with the influx
of Roma refugee claimants by inflicting that pain in the neck on all
Czechs who want to spend even a few days in Canada. The changes will
lead to fewer Czech visitors, cutting (however shallowly) into our
tourism sector and depriving Canadians of opportunities to interact
with the inhabitants of a friendly and interesting European country.
Furthermore, there’s the ironic possibility that the Roma will
actually face more persecution in the Czech Republic as a result of
Uncle Jason’s skepticism about their claims of being persecuted:

In discussions with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, his Czech
counterpart Jan Fischer said he feared that the country’s Roma
community would end up being blamed for Canada’s step. This seems to
have been confirmed when the extremist right-wing Workers Party Web
site blamed Roma for the situation.

Perhaps, then, Chris Selley is right to argue that the whole refugee
system is hopelessly dysfunctional and will remain so “until we make
some big, tough, principled and pragmatic changes”. However, I think
what we really need is a single, simple change of mindset – we need to
get better at saying no. At the moment, the thought of firmly, briskly
and decisively refusing a refugee claim, no matter how insubstantial
or lacking in credibility, is apparently so horrific that we feel
compelled to protect ourselves by stopping potential claimants from
entering the country in the first place. In the process, we now
inconvenience Czechs, and for that matter Mexicans, who only want to
make brief visits to Canada and then return to their own countries.
Our refusal to engage directly with the problem is really quite
contemptible.

So for any Czechs who may be reading this, please accept my apologies.
We’ll try to get this mess sorted out soon.

http://canadasworld.wordpress.com/2009/08/02/canadas-refugee-driven-visa-policy-unfriendly-to-czechs-lacking-in-balances/

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