The Immigration Department says greater than 24,000 travel documents could possibly be suspended by the federal government’s measures to maintain Ebola out of Canada.
The federal government has announced a 90-day suspension of quite a lot of immigration and travel documents for people within the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda and South Sudan. The suspension took effect at 11:59 p.m. ET on Wednesday.
A department spokesperson said in an emailed response that there have been about 12,600 DRC residents and 11,500 Ugandan residents with valid travel documents as of May 19.
The federal government estimates there have been 470 South Sudan residents with valid immigration travel documents as of May 21.
The department spokesperson stressed the measures are based solely on country of residence, not nationality, so people from those three countries who will not be currently residing in any of them will not be affected.
Suspended documents include electronic travel authorizations and temporary and everlasting resident visas for people currently in considered one of the three listed countries.
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The federal government is pausing decisions on these documents filed from any of the three affected countries but says it is going to keep processing passports, everlasting resident cards and everlasting resident travel documents.
Visa extensions for people who find themselves already in Canada will proceed to be processed normally.
Anyone coming to Canada from Ebola-affected regions will likely be required to undergo a 21-day quarantine. That measure is about to run out on Aug. 29.
The spokesperson said the federal government will proceed to watch the general public health situation, citing increased international travel for the FIFA World Cup, which Canada is co-hosting with america and Mexico.
The three countries issued a joint statement Thursday saying they’ve aligned their travel measures for people coming from Ebola-hit regions of Africa resulting from the hundreds of thousands of travellers expected for the World Cup.
This mass suspension of travel documents marks the federal government’s first use of powers it granted itself through its border laws, Bill C-12, which passed in late March.
The brand new law says the federal government has the flexibility to switch immigration documents in bulk when it’s deemed to be in the general public interest and approved by cabinet. The reasoning and timeline for any changes should be clearly defined, in accordance with the law.
In committee testimony before the bill became law, Immigration Minister Lena Diab cited the COVID-19 pandemic as a situation where this power would have been useful.
Critics have argued the facility could possibly be abused by the federal government resulting from the broad definition that could possibly be applied to “public interest.”
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