Good news for Filipino visitors

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/06/2023 (1176 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Last week, Sean Fraser, Canada’s immigration minister visited Winnipeg to make a major announcement that benefited citizens of several countries, including the Philippines.

In short, people from the Philippines who have visited Canada in the past 10 years, or those who have a valid United States visa, can now apply to enter Canada by air without a traditional visiting visa.

That is big news as thousands of people will directly benefit and nowhere will it be felt more than here in Winnipeg.

Canada’s Filipino community is estimated at one million people, of which close to 10 per cent call Manitoba home. Winnipeg’s North End is where you will find the heart of our nation’s Filipino heritage community, which means the announcement made last week will benefit the residents of Winnipeg North more than any other community in the country.

Allow me to give a real-life example. If I have a sister living in the Philippines and she visited me four years ago, all she needs to do today is go online and apply for electronic travel authorization and, in most situations, she will be given the green light to enter Canada in minutes.

Had she applied back in May she would have been required to apply for a visiting visa by submitting a detailed application to Immigration Canada, paid a minimum of $100 and would have then waited for weeks, if not months, before she might be issued a visiting visa to travel to Canada.

The impact of this announcement will be felt in many ways. Travellers will now be approved within minutes or hours, and the total cost will be less than $10.

This new process will free up tens of thousands of staff hours within Immigration Services, which will enable them to better serve those applying to visit Canada for the first time or those having difficulties obtaining a visa.

The Canadian economy will benefit as the overall number and frequency of people coming to visit Canada will dramatically increase. We will see more international flights coming and going from Canada and there will hopefully be more pressure on airlines like Air Canada and West Jet to do more, too. Travel between Winnipeg and the Philippines may someday justify a direct flight.

Every month I write hundreds of support letters to assist in getting visas approved. A large percentage of these applicants have travelled here before and I can confirm that this is good news for them. The biggest winners are obviously people who need or desire to travel to Canada, but next to them are the thousands of families and friends who want to see family members and friends visit to participate in weddings, birthdays, graduations, retirement parties, funerals and so much more.

I should note that travellers from 12 other countries will also be eligible for the electronic travel authorization — Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Costa Rica, Morocco, Panama, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Seychelles, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago and hopefully Uruguay.