* Canada issues 331 permanent resident visas to Sri Lankans affected by the tsunami

Monday, June 13, 2005, 11:29 GMT, ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka.

June 13, Colombo: The Canadian government announced today that 331 permanent resident visas were issued to Sri Lankans in an effort to reunite close family members of Canadian citizens and permanent residents who were seriously and personally affected by the tsunami disaster on December 26.

The Canadian High Commission in Colombo said, “As part of Canada’s humanitarian response to the disaster, Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) put in place temporary measures to assist the people who had been affected. These measures included expediting the processing of applications for those with close family members in Canada and waiving the processing fees for applicants personally and seriously affected by the disaster. CIC offices in Canada and at the affected missions abroad began reviewing, on a priority basis, existing applications from people in the tsunami-affected areas as soon as the measures were announced.

“The large majority of the visas were issued to priority family class members: spouses, partners and dependent children. Close to 80 percent of priority family class applications already in process when the disaster struck were finalized in the four months following the disaster. At the same time, CIC is on track to process, within six months, applications already in process when the disaster struck, from parents and grandparents affected by the disaster.”

As of May 31, CIC had responded to 2,610 enquiries from the public through its special tsunami e-mail account, and 8,303 enquiries from the public on its tsunami hotline.
source:http://www.colombopage.com/archive/June13112941JV.html

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