Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Kamina Johnson Smith, has indicated that Jamaica has met with Canada on its expanded electronic travel authorisation (eTA) programme, which eased visa requirements for several countries.
Canada recently announced the addition of 13 countries, including several in the Caribbean, to the eTA programme.
Travellers from these countries who have either held a Canadian visa in the last 10 years or who currently hold a valid United States non-immigrant can now apply for an eTA instead of a visa when travelling to Canada by air.
Speaking on the ‘Good Morning Minister’ Programme on Love 101-FM on Wednesday, Johnson Smith addressed the issue of Jamaica not being part of the programme.
She said among the issues discussed was visa refusals.
“I had asked their high commissioner to come in to meet with me, which she did. The first thing is our refusal rate for visa applications was double the threshold that they had for countries that were eligible for eTA. And why were our people refused at such a high rate? Because we do not complete the form, so people feel that we are being dishonest,” Johnson Smith said.
Another issue was the use of unauthorised agents when applying for Canadian visas.
“We think that any travel agent can apply for your visa for you. But the Canadians have a list of authorised agents on their webpage, and we go to all manner of persons. There are people who apply for visas… and they will add on three random people. So they recognise that this type of activity takes place with some of the unauthorised [agents]. So they don’t accept from every and anybody,” Johnson Smith said.
“So, when you use an unauthorised agent… not only would you be refused just for that, but you are adding up the statistics for Jamaicans who act outside of the system,” she added.
Johnson Smith also mentioned the number of Jamaicans who overstay on the visa legitimately granted and those who travel on the visa granted and then seek asylum for some other reason as contributory factors to Jamaica not being on the list.
