Voyageur 113
Canada Shuts the Door on Three African Countries Thanks to Ebola, and China's Foreign Minister Comes to Ottawa on Thursday. The Last One Came in 2016.
News for residents of the “11th province”: Canadians abroad.
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Canada Shuts the Door on Three African Countries. Ebola Made the Call.
Ottawa will suspend immigration processing from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, and South Sudan at midnight Eastern Wednesday night, starting a 90-day clampdown. Permanent residence visas, temporary residence visas, eTAs, study permits, and work permits from those three countries are all caught up in the snafu.
Starting Saturday night, anyone arriving in Canada who's been in those countries in the past three weeks, including Canadian citizens, will be sent for a medical assessment at the border. Those without symptoms will then be revisited to self-isolate for 21 days. Anyone with symptoms gets to go straight to hospital.
The outbreak in central Africa has passed 1,000 suspected cases and hundreds of deaths, mostly in Congo, with seven known cases in neighbouring Uganda. The Public Health Agency says the risk inside Canada is still low, but Ottawa wants to move early ahead of the FIFA World Cup, which begins in mid-June.
For Canadian expats in Africa, the door home now has a three-week hiatus included.
Read more: CBC News / Government of Canada
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A photo from the old country:
China's Foreign Minister Lands in Ottawa on Thursday. The Last One Came in 2016.
Wang Yi, China's Foreign Minister, is expected to land in Ottawa Thursday for the first visit by a Chinese foreign minister in a decade. The last visit was also by Wang Yi, in 2016, before the Meng Wanzhou arrest and the detention of the two Michaels put ice on bilateral relations.
He'll spend two days with Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand before taking a hike in Gatineau on Saturday. The trip is a continuation of the thaw that started with PM Mark Carney's January visit to Beijing, where the two sides agreed to open Canada's market to 49,000 Chinese EVs. Beijing also dropped duties on canola, lobster, crabs, and peas.
Wang Yi is also stopping in Washington as part of the same trip, laying the foundation for a possible Xi Jinping visit later this year.
Read more: The Globe and Mail / Global Affairs Canada