A Bit More Detail

The recent Canadian government decision to impose visa restrictions on Czech citizens as a result of a flood of Roma refugees may be reversed, as they are complicating Canadian-European Union trade negotiations. New restrictive refugee legislation can be thanked for this.

Ottawa hopes to strike an even more comprehensive deal than the North American Free Trade Agreement by the end of 2011, and predicts such a treaty could boost the country's GDP by $12 billion annually.

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The Harper government imposed visa requirements last year on the Czech Republic and Mexico in an effort to stem the flood of refugee claimants from those countries.

A Canadian government source downplayed the issue, calling it a "minor irritant" that is of greater concern to the Czech government than it is to the overall European negotiating team.

The Czech government indeed says it may not approve of any deal until the travel restriction is overturned. It also questions the logic of tightening borders while, at the same time, negotiating a deal to open them.

"The visa restriction launched by Canada against the Czech Republic . . . is in its very principal in discrepancy with the overall aim of the CETA agreement," the Czech government said in an email.

"If the visa requirement for Czech citizens travelling to Canada is still valid at the time of the ratification of the CETA agreement — which the Czech Republic hopes will not be the case — we could not rule out that this may be an obstacle to the ratification of CETA by Czech Parliament."

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The prime minister also faced a question from a Czech journalist about whether a policy change could be expected soon. Harper left the door open to such a change, and suggested it could happen once ongoing refugee reforms were completed in Canada.

The government wants to speed up the deportation of rejected refugee claimants as part of a wider plan to reduce the backlog of cases.

"Our hope is that legislation will go through soon," Harper replied. "As we implement that legislation . . . I think that would be pretty key to us being able to remove visa requirements in some cases."