MOSCOW, August 14 (Itar-Tass) - Canada’s authorities are hiring temporary consular employees who will work overtime to sort out delays with visas to Russian citizens amid a strike of diplomats, the Canadian Ministry of Citizenship & Immigration told Itar-Tass on Wednesday.
Over 1,000 officials in Canada’s consular offices in different countries continued to work normally and the ministry was hiring additionally temporary employees and conducting accelerated courses for new personnel. The ministry handed over some applications to Canada and other consular offices that had opportunity to do this work.
On Tuesday Russia’s Union of Travel Industry (RST) sent an address to Canadian Minister of Citizenship & Immigration Chris Alexander with a request to sort out delays in visas to Russian tourists.
The RST said a strike that officials of the Canadian embassy in Moscow had begun on June 11 continued. Visa delays continue to disrupt expensive study travels and tours forcing tourists to suffer additional expenses and seriously damaging businesses, tour operators said. “In fact, summer holidays to this destination have been disrupted and autumn enrollment of long-term students is under the threat of disruption,” the union said.
“In June-July our tourist groups from Vladivostok, Ulan-Ude, Novorossiysk and Moscow could not fly to that country,” a travel agency representative said.
“Personnel of the Canadian embassy do not answer telephone calls and e-mails. To our official requests they send formal replies, which contain no word about the timeframe for processing documents,” the RST said.