Special Canadian visa programme for Mexican business travellers

The Canadian immigration minister announced the new programme, where participants will be able to get their Canadian visa requests processed within 24 hours.

"Canada welcomes travellers from Mexico and has been looking at ways to provide enhanced services to applicants,” Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said in a press release.

The special Canadian visa programme will help business and trade between the two countries, which are among each other’s largest trading partners, by reducing paperwork and providing priority processing of Canadian visa applications for Mexican business travellers.

The special Canadian visa programme for business travellers comes after the Canadian government announced a new travel visa requirement for Mexican and Czech nationals last year.

The government said it was imposing the rules to help stem the waves of refugee claimants from those two countries.

Participation in the program will be by invitation only and businesses with key connections to Canada will be identified by the Canadian Embassy or Export Development Canada, and then invited to take part. So far the Canadian embassy has already invited 113 companies to enrol in the program and 12 businesses have registered.

The Canadian Visa Bureau is an independent consulting company specialising in helping people lodge their Canadian Visa applications with the Canadian Embassy.