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The Honourable John McCallum, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, announced today the Government of Canada’s intention to lift the visa requirements for Romanian and Bulgarian citizens on December 1, 2017.
It demonstrates the importance that the Government of Canada places on its relationship with both countries and with the EU more broadly.
However, Ottama would reserve the right to reimpose the visa requirement “should irregular migration trends increase significantly from either country.”
“In the lead-up to the full visa lifts, Canada intends to implement partial lifts for eligible Romanian and Bulgarian citizens travelling to Canada for May 1, 2017,” the statement reads.
It also says Romanian and Bulgarian citizens who have held a Canadian temporary resident visa in the past 10 years or who currently hold a valid United States (U.S.) non-immigrant visa would not require a temporary resident visa and would be able to fly to or transit through Canada with an Electronic Travel Authorization (eTA) instead of a visa.
Lifting the visa requirements was a key condition set by Bulgaria and Romania in exchange for support of the EU-Canada Compehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) signed on Sunday.
Agencies/Canadajournal
