The Record – Waterloo Region
The Canadian Press Ottawa
November 1, 2007
Citizenship and Immigration Minister Diane Finley has announced that visitors to Canada from the Czech Republic and Latvia no longer require visas.
The decision to lift the visa requirements, said Finley, was taken as part of Canada’s ongoing review of travel requirements for new European Union members. Finley says her government is committed to the “free and secure movement of people between the EU and Canada,” and to the objective of visa-exempt status for all EU member states.
The visas, designed to ensure that visitors to Canada return to their countries of origin, still apply to six other eastern European countries that were once part of the former eastern Bloc but have since joined the EU. This includes travellers from Bulgaria, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and the Slovak Republic.
