Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has hinted at easing visa requirements for visitors in the future.
At a meeting with Algonquin university students held in Ottawa on the 10th, the Prime Minister said, “The current issuance process is based on proving that the applicant does not intend to reside in Canada permanently.”
“If you want to visit your child studying abroad, it is not right to explain the current situation to the immigration officer in detail,” he said. “We also recently agreed with the immigration minister.”
The answer came as an international student explained to the Prime Minister that while he was hospitalized for seven months, his parents had applied for a visa to visit Canada but had been rejected twice.
“It is the Department of Immigration’s fault for refusing visitation from the parents under these circumstances,” Trudeau said.
Immigration Minister Sean Fraser’s office said recently that it was studying ways to make it easier for foreigners to obtain visas to visit family members living in Canada.
The federal government’s rigid visa issuance rules have been making headlines around the world lately. The Department of Immigration has refused to issue visas to hundreds of scholars who will be attending a meeting in Montreal next month on the grounds that they cannot prove the possibility of returning home after the event is over.
They presented air tickets, their income, and the evidence they received for attending the meeting, but the Immigration Department was adamant.
Also last year, the African delegation, which was scheduled to attend an international conference on AIDS in Montreal, was denied a visa, and the federal government at the time faced accusations of racial discrimination.