St. Kitts and Nevis foreign minister pushes for visa waiver in Ottawa visit

Nearly four years after losing visa-free access to Canada, the government of a two-island Eastern Caribbean state is engaging in a full-court press to convince the Liberals the travel restrictions are an unnecessary burden for its citizens. Last week, St. Kitts and Nevis Foreign Minister Mark Brantley travelled to Canada to meet with a host of government officials and make the case that his country should be allowed to shake off the yoke of the visitor’s visa required for the past few years. In November 2014, Canada imposed a visa requirement on the country after concerns with its citizenship-by-investment program. The program at the time allowed foreign nationals to buy citizenship and get a St. Kitts and Nevis passport and, most controversially, a diplomatic document, without ever setting foot in the country. The government was accused of forgoing security and selling citizenship to shady characters for the sake of much-needed cash to shore up its bottom line. After having its visa-free travel privileges revoked, the government recalled more than 15,000 passports. But years later, St. Kitts and Nevis is still left out in the cold, according to Mr. Brantley. “We feel imposition of the visas on the 50,000 souls that call St. Kitts and Nevis home is unfortunate and inconsistent with the long friendship and the long history not only with St. Kitts and Nevis, but the Caribbean had with Canada,” he told The Hill Times in a June 14 interview at the country’s Besserer Street high commission in Ottawa’s Lowertown neighbourhood. Arriving on June 11, Mr. Brantley participated in the International Economic Forum of the Americas’ Conference of Montreal before arriving in Ottawa where he met with cabinet ministers and officials on June 14, including House Speaker Geoff Regan, International Development Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau, her parliamentary secretary Celina Caesar-Chavannes, Fisheries and Oceans Minister Dominic LeBlanc, Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen, and Matt DeCourcey, parliamentary secretary to the foreign minister. St. Kitts and Nevis government officials have previously engaged with Canadian cabinet ministers including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau—who spent his first Christmas holiday after his 2015 election win in St. Kitts and Nevis. After the visa was imposed, the dual-island nation opened a high commission in Ottawa, making lobbying for a visa waiver one of its top priorities. It's the only member of the 10 Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States to open its own high commission in Ottawa, following the 2011 closure of the group's joint mission. Its second resident high commissioner, Sherry Tross, arrived in February. “There’s no absence of interaction at the highest levels of the Canadian government and our government,” Mr. Brantley said. “And we’ve been concerned that we’ve not been able to get any traction on this issue and that in fact, if there are still outstanding technical issues, it would be our desire to know about them so that we can address them.” St. Kitts recalled its passports following the 2014 visa imposition and reissued them to include the holder’s birth place and any name changes. A March press release notes that St. Kitts and Nevis’ citizenship-by-investment program requires a minimum donation of $150,000 or a real estate purchase of $400,000. “We stand for integrity, rigour, and robust due diligence,” Timothy Harris, the prime minister of St. Kitts and Nevis, said in the release. “In fact, we continue to improve our due diligence process and in the near future we will be introducing biometrics, starting with applicants from high-risk countries.” Canada conducts visa reviews “where there is evidence, following close monitoring, of a shift in migration trends and country conditions that could indicate that a change in policy is warranted,” Julie Lafortune, an Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada spokesperson, said in an emailed response to questions about St. Kitts and Nevis’ visa status from The Hill Times. Among the criteria examined when imposing or lifting a visa are a country’s socio-economic conditions, immigration issues, such as immigration violation rates and asylum claims, the integrity of travel documents, safety and security, border management, human rights, and bilateral relations. “Visa lifts are undertaken when we assess that the benefits to Canadians and Canada’s interests outweigh any potential risks. Currently, Canada has no plans to review the visa requirement for St. Kitts and Nevis,” Ms. Lafortune wrote. Mr. Brantley noted that since 2014, Canada has lifted visa restrictions on other countries, such as Romania, Bulgaria, Chile, and the United Arab Emirates, which “reinforces to us that we need to get back on the agenda insofar as Canada is concerned and insofar as the relationships in the region are concerned.” Although his visit to Canada included discussions about other multilateral issues, such as climate change, plastics in oceans, and renewable energy, visa-lifting is the “No. 1 bilateral issue” for St. Kitts and Nevis and Canada, and the impetus of Mr. Brantley’s travel last week. The visa requirement “has caused tremendous disruption, tremendous anxiety in St. Kitts and Nevis,” Mr. Brantley said, noting he’s had constituents who’ve been unable to attend family events in Canada. And by the end of the year, getting a visa will get tougher, he said. As of Dec. 31, nearly everyone required to apply for a visitor visa to Canada will need to provide biometrics, specifically fingerprints and photos, as part of the application process—making it necessary to apply for a visa in person as opposed to online. There is no Canadian visa office in St. Kitts and Nevis, with the closest one about 760 kilometres away in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. “I can understand the reasons for Canada wanting to collect biometrics,” Mr. Brantley said, “but a ticket from St. Kitts and Nevis to Trinidad and Tobago is about US$800.” The cost of going to apply for a visa for a family, on top of the cost of travelling to Canada if the visa application is approved, might price people out of visiting Canada entirely, he said. St. Kitts and Nevis residents average fewer than 800 visitors to Canada each year, Mr. Brantley said, with fewer than 500 visa applications made annually. “Put bluntly, if the entire country and everybody in it were to get up tomorrow morning and say ‘we’re moving to Canada,’ I don’t even think the government here would notice; the numbers are that small,” he said. “So as to how 800 people could pose any form of risk to Canada beggars belief.” Mr. Brantley said he thinks the officials he met with are listening. “I’ve found the government here to be very responsive, and I think that the message was conveyed very clearly,” he said. cevelyn@hilltimes.com The Hill Times

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St. Kitts and Nevis foreign minister pushes for visa waiver in Ottawa visit

The Caribbean state is wondering why Canada maintains a visa requirement years after it says it’s cleaned up security problems with its citizenship program.

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St. Kitts and Nevis foreign minister pushes for visa waiver in Ottawa visit

The Caribbean state is wondering why Canada maintains a visa requirement years after it says it’s cleaned up security problems with its citizenship program.

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