Cabinet asked To Delay 7-Dollar Visa
Kaven Baker-Voakes, www.blacklocks.ca
Cabinet is being asked to delay a $23 million tourist fee program scheduled to be introduced in 2015. Tourism executives appealed for postponement of the Electronic Travel Authorization program that would see air passengers denied boarding without a mandatory $7 background check.
“It could have a chilling effect,” said Rob Taylor, vice-president of industry affairs with the Tourism Industry Association of Canada; “We don’t usually ask them to delay the implementation of policies but we think to have the least possible impact we should delay the implementation until November of 2015.”
The scheme follows a similar U.S. program introduced in 2008, the Electronic System For Travel Authorization. American travellers and passengers who stop in transit on international flights are exempt from the Canadian checks.
However offshore visitors from scores of countries who don’t currently require visas to enter Canada would be subject to mandatory applications. The electronic visas are valid for five years.
“Our number one market outside of the U.S. is the U.K. followed by China, which has full visa implementation,” said Taylor. “Germany and France are close behind – so it could impact three out of our top five markets.”
Citizenship & Immigration Minister Chris Alexander was unavailable for comment. Alexander’s own department earlier interviewed travellers at Canadian airports for their impressions of the electronic visa. A consultants’ report found foreigners considered it “jarring”, “unfriendly” and “brusque”. “Participants’ feedback about the policy changes themselves weren’t always positive,” concluded a report Electronic Travel Authorization Campaign Pre-Test by Ipsos Reid.
The program will see some three million foreign visitors from non-visa countries barred from flying to Canada without paying a fee and submitting personal information online. Authorities have not explained whether personal data will be stored or shared with other governments. The tourism trade group in a report Gateway To Growth: Visitor Visa Progress Report recommended that cabinet postpone the program to give operators more time to prepare.
Countries and territories whose citizens would be required to submit to the background checks include Andorra, Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, Austria, Bahamas, Barbados, Belgium, Brunei Darussalam, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Federal Republic of Germany, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Papua New Guinea, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Korea, St. Kitts and Nevis, Samoa, San Marino, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.