Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines Dr Ralph Gonsalves made his feelings known to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over Vincentians still not being eligible for visa-free travel to Canada while questionable persons from other countries are allowed to enter Canada without one.
Gonsalves raised the issue during his recent trip to the Canada-CARICOM Summit.
St Vincent and the Grenadines is among several Caribbean countries which require a visa to enter Canada or for some travellers, an Electronic Travel Authorisation (eTA), once certain requirements are met.
The Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, during a media conference today, said he raised this concern with the Canadian PM, who gave him an answer he is accustomed to — that they will continue to look into the matter.
Gonsalves said he told Trudeau that he acknowledged that every country has a right to control its own immigration system. However, the Vincentian prime minister said he also expressed the following to the Canadian Prime Minister:
“I find it painful to see that former Nazis or Nazis from European countries can enter Canada without a visa but the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Robert Milton Cato who was a member of Canadian armed forces… who fought the Nazis in the second world war… that we can’t have a visa-free access.
We either have to have a US visa on which we can get an electronic travel authorisation which helps only about 10 per cent of the population (approximately) or you get your visa in the way in which I applied for mine in order to go the Summit.”
The prime minister says he will continue to press the issue of visa-free travel to Canada for nationals of St Vincent and the Grenadines.
