Canada and EU are on a collision course regarding visa requirements for Romanians and Bulgarians travelling to Canada. Unless Canada removes the visa requirement by Tuesday April 12, 2016 EU is threatening to impose a visa for Canadians travelling to EU.
But it is interesting that the news reports about the visa waiver spat do not tell the story behind Canada's reasons for visa requirement for Romanians and Bulgarians. Canada had had similar quarrels with Hungry and the Czech Republic that were eventually resolved because they took action to prevent some of their own people from travelling to Canada.
Who are these people behind this visa spat that threatens to derail the EU and Canada trade deal and whose plight remains unmentioned in the Canadian stories in the media?
They are the most hated, ostracised, persecuted and humiliated people of Europe. They are known as gypsies, ciganes, gitanes, tzigane, or nomadi. They are stereotyped and derided as vagrants, thieves and pickpockets. They are the Roma --Europe's most unwanted and its untouchables.
Brought in as slaves from India by invaders between 9th and 11th centuries into Afghanistan and beyond, over time and in pursuit of freedom from slavery they travelled to Europe. In some parts of Europe they were enslaved until the early 20th century. They have never been fully integrated into the different European societies. They face varying degrees of hate, discrimination, exclusion and violence. In some countries such as Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic they continue to face violent attacks. There has been slow if any progress at all in ending housing and school segregation. They continue to live on the fringes of the European society.
Some years ago I witnessed in person the Roma's plight in the suburbs of Paris. They were living in temporary squatter camps after their slightly more permanent camps had been bulldozed in the middle of the night by the then President Sarkozy's Para-military police to force them to leave or deport them to Romania and Bulgaria where they faced extreme violence and persecution.
The conditions for them have not improved very much. Canadian visa requirement was slapped on Romania and Bulgaria. The Roma finding it impossible to live with violence and persecution in Romania and Bulgaria and facing regular deportations from Germany, Italy and France where they weren't allowed to apply for asylum, had started coming to Canada in significant numbers. Thus the Harper government effectively banned the entry of Roma fleeing violence and persecution in Romania and Bulgaria.
The liberal government needs to recognise that yes! Europe will continue to produce its own Roma refugees to Canada until EU forces its members to fully accept and integrate the almost universally stereotyped, persecuted and vilified Roma of Europe. Harper government had responded rather cruelly to their terrible plight. To-date the new government of Canada has silently maintained Harper's unjust and inhuman policy on the Roma refugees.
Now that we have taken our fair share of the Syrian refugees and deservedly so, can Canada turn its attention to the real refugees of Europe - the Roma - and open our doors to them even if ever so slightly?
Canada really needs to be back --in this case for the persecuted European Roma.
