The St. Kitts-Nevis gov­ern­ment says Cana­da has an­nounced a sig­nif­i­cant de­vel­op­ment in bi­lat­er­al re­la­tions with the twin-is­land Fed­er­a­tion by grant­i­ng a par­tial visa-free waiv­er to na­tion­als al­low­ing them to trav­el to Cana­da by air for short stays with­out the need for a visa.

”This land­mark de­ci­sion is a tes­ta­ment to the strength­en­ing of ties be­tween our two na­tions and ac­knowl­edges the mu­tu­al ben­e­fits of en­hanced peo­ple-to-peo­ple ex­changes, tourism, and busi­ness op­por­tu­ni­ties. Eas­ing trav­el re­stric­tions for Kit­ti­tians and Nevisians fos­ters greater cul­tur­al un­der­stand­ing and pro­motes eco­nom­ic growth be­tween both friend­ly coun­tries,” ac­cord­ing to a state­ment is­sued by the of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter.

“It is im­por­tant to note that while the par­tial visa-free waiv­er fa­cil­i­tates eas­i­er trav­el, all Kit­ti­tians and Nevisians who wish to vis­it Cana­da must com­plete the Elec­tron­ic Ap­pli­ca­tion Form (eTA) for sev­en Cana­di­an Dol­lars, be­fore trav­el, to be grant­ed ac­cess,” the state­ment said.

It said un­der this par­tial visa-free waiv­er, St. Kitts-Nevis cit­i­zens will be able to vis­it Cana­da for tourism, busi­ness meet­ings, fam­i­ly vis­its, and oth­er short-term pur­pos­es with­out the re­quire­ment of ob­tain­ing a tra­di­tion­al visa.

The state­ment said to qual­i­fy for the par­tial visa-free waiv­er, the per­son must be in pos­ses­sion of a valid pass­port and who al­so had a Cana­di­an visa dur­ing the past 10 years, as well as those who have a cur­rent non-im­mi­grant US visa.

The trav­eller must demon­strate suf­fi­cient funds to cov­er the stay in Cana­da and in­di­vid­u­als with a crim­i­nal record may not be el­i­gi­ble for the visa-free waiv­er and should ap­ply for a reg­u­lar visa.

BAS­SETERRE, St. Kitts, Aug 7, CMC

CMC/af/ir/2023