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| La Diana Cazadora. Mexico City. © Canadian and World Tourism |
The Hon. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau may have painted himself into a corner last year, when as the then candidate for the Liberal Party of Canada, he promised to lift the visa requirements for Mexican visitors if he won the election. He further put himself and his government in a tight place when he reiterated that promise to Mexican President Peña Nieto in the Fall of 2015 in the Philippines. Following that occasion, Trudeau’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Stephane Dion, reassured Mexican Secretary of Foreign Relations, Claudia Ruiz Massieu, that Canada was working on lifting the visa, even though he did not give guidance as to when that might happen.
The Three Amigos Summit
In recent weeks, Canadian media have mentioned that the visa could be lifted in June when President Peña Nieto travels to Ottawa for the Three Amigos Summit with President Obama and Prime Minister Trudeau. No one from the government, however, has confirmed this. Last week, Prime Minister Trudeau announced that the summit will take place in Ottawa on June 29, 2016. When asked if the contentious visa requirements would be lifted by then or before, he was not clear only indicating that the government was working very hard on the file. The National Post quoted the Prime Minsiter as saying “working with diligence and we hope to have good things to announce in the weeks and months ahead.”
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| Parliament Hill. Centre Block. © Canadian and World Tourism |
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| Cancún, Mexico. Over 1,000,000 Canadians visit Mexico every year. In contrast, less than 200,000 Mexicans per year visit Canada since the imposition of visa requirements in 2009. © Canadian and World Tourism |
Trudeau and Peña Nieto’s challenge
Whatever the Canadian government decides to do about the visa, they have less than 2 months to accomplish it. There have been rumblings that the Mexican President will not go to Ottawa for the Three Amigos Summit if Canada does not lift the visa requirements. Both President Obama and Prime Minister Trudeau need Peña Nieto to attend and to endorse their climate change policies to show the world a North American front in this matter. With Obama leaving soon, President Peña Nieto becomes more important for Canada in the NAFTA relationship going forward. The Mexican President’s term ends at the end of 2018. Both countries need each other vis a vis their relationship with the United States. However, the need is not as critical as Trudeau may have implied in the past. Mexico needs Canada’s market more than the other way around. The fact is that the value of Canada’s imports from Mexico dwarf the exports going down there ($25 billion in imports vs less than $6 billion in exports as of 2011). Nevertheless, strategically speaking, going forward Mexico will be more important to Canada given its potential for growth as compared to Canada’s (see Laura Dawson’s excellent paper for the CCCE: Where we’ve been, where we’re going and why it matters). So the challenge for both heads of governments will be to come up with a mutually acceptable solution (at least in the short term) on the issue of the visa that both can sell to their constituents and critics without losing face. The average Canadian does not really care if the visa is lifted or not, but he or she would care if bogus refugee claims increase dramatically because of it. It will be very interesting to see how the Prime Minister will deal with this situation.
Source: canadianandworldtourism.com