PARENTS AND CANADA-EU

GRANDPARENTS COUNCILLORS
WANT TORONTO

DEVELOPMENT
CO-OPERATION

PAGE 5

PAGE 12

LOTS OF IDEAS TO FIX

BACKLOGGED SYSTEM.
WHICH ARE FEASIBLE?

OUT OF DEAL

PAGE 8

OECD TEAM HEARS

MIXED REVIEWS

GEORGIA
CANADA
CALLED ON
TO OPEN
TBILISI
EMBASSY

PAGE 19

EMBASSY
CANADAS FOREIGN POLICY NEWSWEEKLY
OTTAWA, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2011 ISSUE 382 $4.00

Saudi
Arabia slows
Canadian visa
processing
The kingdom says Canada is taking
too long to process Saudi visas and is reciprocating. The Canadian governments
lack of response was not satisfactory.
Kristen Shane

Continued on Page 4

Bottoms Up: International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda, Associate Minister of National Defence Julian Fantino, Minister of State for Finance Ted
Menzies, and Defence Minister Peter MacKay drink sake at the Japanese emperors birthday celebrations at the Westin hotel in Ottawa on Nov. 24.

Scrap ethical oil

Why Iran sees Canada
for conscientious
in a better light than
approach, Canada told the US and the UK
After Obamas involvement in the Keystone XL pipeline
delay, analysts say the Harper government should instead
promote Canadas democracy, governance structure and
environmental safeguards. But proponents are sticking with
their slogan, saying it just needs more time to sink in.
Sneh Duggal

nited States President

Barack Obamas move to
delay the final decision on
TransCanada Corp.s highly
controversial Keystone XL
pipeline had some pronouncing the death of the ethical
oil argument.
Canada desperately needs
a credible environmental message it can take to Washington.
Counter-arguments
about

ethical oil havent turned the

debate in our favour, wrote Fen
Hampson, director of Carleton
Universitys Norman Paterson
School of International Affairs,
in an iPolitics column last week.
But is ethical oil really
dead, and if so, just what would
be that credible message?
The proponents of ethical
oilthe idea that humanity is
stuck in an oil-dependent world,
and that the oil sector is mostly
controlled by oppressive regimes,
Continued on Page 4

These nations slapped

new sanctions this month
on Tehran. While Canadas
actions were unfair, the
Iranian envoy sees an
opportunity to mend
fences and boost dialogue.
EMBASSY PHOTO: SAM GARCIA

Publications Mail Agreement #40068926

audi Arabia is deliberately prolonging

the processing of Canadian visas in a
retaliatory move to protest what it says are
too-slow processing times of Saudi visas to
Canada.
The Saudi mission in Ottawa says officials
brought the issue up to Canadian authorities
on numerous occasions.
The Canadian governments lack of
response was not satisfactory, said the head
of the consular section of Saudi Arabias
Ottawa embassy in an email to Embassy.
The Kingdoms Ministry of Foreign
Affairs has decided to apply the principle
of reciprocity in order to send a clear and
strong message to our friends in Canada that
the current situation is unacceptable and
cannot be allowed to continue, hoping that
they will understand and value the relationship the two countries share.
The Saudi decision, which went into
effect Sept. 1, means processing of Canadian
visa requests takes between 30 and 45 days.
A message alerting Canadians to the change
appears on the Saudi embassy website.
[T]he waiting period for issuing a visa
to Canadian citizens wishing to enter the
Kingdom has been prolonged to meet the
same amount of time it takes Saudi citizens
to obtain a visa from the Canadian embassy
in Riyadh, wrote the spokesperson, who did
not give their name.
There are no other changes to the
usual visa requirements for Canadians,
which are already quite tight. Whatever
a Canadians reason for going to Saudi
Arabia, they must get a visa. Visas must
be sponsored by a Saudi citizen, company or organization. Upon arrival, the
Canadian must surrender their passport
to their Saudi sponsor and receive a residency card, according to the Department
of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
website.
But the added delay is already having an
impact on some Canadians, said one director of a company that helps facilitate the
visa process, who spoke on condition of
anonymity in order to speak candidly about
the situation.

EMBASSY PHOTO: SAM GARCIA

Kristen Shane

rans man in Ottawa says new

Canadian sanctions against
his country are unfair, but
still views Canada in a better
light than the United States and
United Kingdom.
Charg dAffaires Kambiz
Sheikh-Hassani says Canada has a
reputation of being fair. Now, with

bilateral relations at a low point

and rhetoric high, he is calling for
an urgent need of engagement.
Continued on Page 10

EMBASSY, Wednesday, November 30, 20114

News

Calls to scrap ethical oil for conscientious approach

Continued from Page 1

meaning that energy consumers are stuck with

the choice between unsavory merchants and
Canadastill say their message is solid.
They point out that the Harper government is
sticking with the idea; several ministers, including
Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver, consistently call the oil sands an ethical source of energy.
But analysts say the pipeline delay proves
the government, if it wishes to continue promoting crude from the oil sands to the Americans,
cant stick with ethical oil, and must craft
a new message highlighting Canadas democratic and environmental mechanisms.
Chris MacDonald, a visiting scholar at
the University of Torontos Clarkson Centre
for Business Ethics and Board Effectiveness,
said that Canada will likely have to be more
sincere. The country should play up the fact
that it takes a conscientious approach to
problem-solving, he said, and has governance structures and regulations in place.
Were a democracy with a vigorous public
debate and civil society, and while we cant
claim to be free of problems on the environmental side or the human rights side, our trading partners ought to be reassured somewhat
by the fact that we at least have the mechanisms in place by which we can plausibly deal
with some of these situations, he said.

Other countries may not have this

advantage.
The advantage Canada has is not that
its oil is ethical, he said, but rather that
Canada can say it acknowledges the problems it has, it is working to make them better,
and it has got the processes in place to do it.
The oil Industry, which unlike the federal government has been hesitant to embrace
the ethical oil label, actually prefers this
approach. Travis Davies, spokesperson for the
Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers,
said this is what their group has been doing.
CAPP has been focused on delivering the
message on performance for years now. Our
entire goal has been to go out there and show,
demonstrate if you will, that these improvements
are being made, theyre being made by real people on the ground in Alberta and this is what they
look like. And we think that thats a very credible
message to take to Washington, he said.
For Paul Frazer, a former Canadian diplomat who is a Washington-based specialist in
government relations, there is no one message that will work.
Canada should presumably do everything
it can to demonstrate not only to Canadians,
but also to Americans that indeed, from a
management perspective, from an environmental and from a scientific perspective, the
government and industry can be and are at

the leading edge of advances that will reduce

greenhouse gas emissions, advances that will
safeguard the environment whether that be
water, air or land, he said.
Alberta in particular has a good story to
tell, he added, and part of any message has
to be a multi-faceted effort to show what is
happening in Canada.
I think a message can be developed, but
part of the message has to be that were not
done yet, he said.
Progress is being made, that Canada
hasnt reached the end of the road on this.
The other aspect is getting Canadians and
Americans up to the oil sands. First-hand visits,
he said, go a long way to help people understand
whats being done to ameliorate the situation.
Mr. Olivers office did not return requests
for comment before deadline.

Proponents sticking with message

Ethical oil was an idea started by Sun

News pundit Ezra Levant, who wrote a book
in 2010 called Ethical Oil: The Case for
Canadas Oil Sands.
In an interview with Embassy, Mr. Levant
said that despite the pipeline delay, the ethical oil campaign has not failed, and that the
message is just beginning to propagate.
His idea was spread by Immigration
Minister Jason Kenneys former communica-

tions director, Alykhan Velshi, when he left

his job and formed EthicalOil.org to defend
Albertas oil industry. Mr. Velshi, however,
has now landed a job in the Prime Ministers
Office, leaving EthicalOil.org to spokesperson Kathryn Marshall, a 24 Hours Vancouver
columnist who has worked on political campaigns and at the Fraser Institute.
Ms. Marshall agreed with Mr. Levant that
the message was just starting.
I havent heard people really start talking
about the ethics of oil yet, she said.
[Regarding] Keystone, for example, I didnt
hear people talking about human rights, or workers rights or peace and democracy. Once we
start having that discussion, thats what ethical
oil is about, its about having discussions about
the implications of where oil comes from.
She also says Canadas leaders need to
tell the story of the countrys oil in the
United States.
That hasnt really been done, and a big
part of that story I think is the story about
how were the most ethical producer of oil in
the whole world, she said.
Ultimately, Mr. Levant argues that the
message should start with the oil companies
themselves.
They need to believe they are ethical. If not,
they have to fix it. The first part is self-respect.
editor@embassymag.ca

Saudi Arabia slows Canadian visa processing

The Saudis were very blunt; they said
this is retaliation, said the director. We
used to be able to get visas same daywalk
in at 10, pick it up at 2, at the Saudi Embassy.
Now, the company says approved Saudi
visas are being received weeks after dropoff, whose date stamps show they were
processed in the same week the applicant
submitted their documents.
We have personally seen a drop to just
about as low as it can get in Canadians seeking
Saudi visas. It was never a rush, but its now
down to almost nothing, said the director.
The international oil companies are redeploying their Canadians elsewhere, oil fields
that can use Canadian specialists but dont
have the Saudi problem. And then theyll put
in, say, Brits, people whove worked in the
North Sea, because it doesnt take as long.
Saudi Arabia isnt the first country to
retaliate against Canada using visa policy
changes. Its neighbour in the Middle East,
the United Arab Emirates, slapped new visa
requirements on Canada last year during a
dispute with Canada over landing rights at
Canadian airports for its airlines.

Student complaints

The Saudi embassy says the significant

delays its citizens are experiencing in receiving visas from the Canadian embassy in the
countrys capital, Riyadh, affect Saudis coming to Canada to undergo medical treatment,
do business, study, or as part of official delegations. It says some Saudi citizens have to
wait more than three months to get a visa.
Thousands of Saudi Arabian students come
to Canada to study in Canadian universities
every year, many through the kingdoms generous King Abdullah Scholarship Program.
The Canadian governments current processing time for study permit applications
stands at about six weeks, according to
Citizenship and Immigration Canada.
Mohammed Alsharif, a public relations
officer with the Saudi Students Society of
British Columbia, which receives funding
from the Saudi Cultural Bureau in Ottawa
(affiliated with the Saudi government) came

Facebook screenshot

Continued from Page 1

A screenshot of a Facebook group created to raise concerns about delays in issuing visas at the
Canadian embassy in Riyadh, the capital and largest city of Saudi Arabia.

to do his masters in business administration

at Simon Fraser University in December 2008.
Every Saudi student coming to Canada
has to get a separate study permit and entry
visa. But they sometimes expire before the
student is set to finish school, so they have
to be renewed.
Mr. Alsharif said every time he has had to
renew his permits, he has waited no longer than
about a month. But it recently took his wife three
months to have her study permit renewed.
He is heading home to see his family in
December, and will send away for another
entry visa to get back into Canada as soon as
he arrives in Saudi Arabia (he cant start the
process until that time because the Canadians
need his passport, which he needs to travel).
He said he hopes all goes well, or he may
need to skip his next semester of school, even
though he has a valid two-year study permit.
I love Canada, love my Canadian friends,
like the country and it was a great experience to study in Canada, and to get to know
Canadian friends here, but this situation with
the CIC and the visa officer is getting me frus-

trated actually, he said in a phone interview.

He said hes hearing of processing times
that used to be three or four weeks are now
two to three months.
Other Saudi students tell similar stories
that they or their friends faced.
Abdulrahman Alamri, who heads an
Ottawa-based Saudi students group, said
there are two problems: the visa delay, and
the fact that students must keep track of
separate entry and study permits that sometimes have very short durations.
This is a major problem for Saudis in
Canada, he said, adding that Saudis going
to the United States are not experiencing the
same problems.
Saudis used to come to Canada without
a visa. But after 9/11many the hijackers who helped crash passenger planes
into American landmarks were Saudisthe
United States and Canada tightened their
visa requirements.
The visa office director maintains that
these security checks are the reason for the
Canadian visa processing delays.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada spokesperson Nancy Caron explained the reason
for the delays as a sudden and unexpected
increase in the number of applications received
during the summer of 2011 for temporary resident visas at the Canadian Embassy in Riyadh.
She wrote in an email to Embassy that
the extraordinary processing times seen
in the summer 2011 were a temporary phenomenon.
Since Aug. 1, she said, processing times
have improved significantly.
Regarding requests for study permits
or permit extensions for foreign students
already in Canada, she said our inland processing centres have been working diligently
to reduce processing times, including the
introduction of a night shift.
The processing time for those permits is
now about 11 weeks. But a student who is
renewing their expired permit can still study
in Canada; their status remains until a decision is made on their renewal application.
The Saudi Embassy says its government
has discussed the delays with various
official Canadian delegations visiting the
Kingdom, the Saudi ambassador in Ottawa,
Osamah Al Sanosi Ahmad, has also talked to
high-ranking Canadian Immigration, Foreign
Affairs and parliamentary officials.
But no positive steps were undertaken,
so the Saudi government imposed its reciprocity principle.
Ms. Caron said CIC officials met with
Saudi government representatives both in
Ottawa and Riyadh.
Those meetings have been productive
exchanges of information, she said, adding
as processing times have improved, there
has been a substantial decrease in the number of concerns raised.
But the damage could be more long
term. Mr. Alamri said he is going back to
Saudi Arabia soon to give a presentation to
prospective international students on his
Canadian study experience.
Ill talk to them about the visa issue, its
not easy to renew...your study permit and
entry visa, he said.
I have to be honest with them.
kshane@embassymag.ca