North American Free Trade Agreement and Canada Mexico

Canada: The Conservatives argued at the time that many of the refugee applications were bogus, according to CTV. The Mexican ambassador to Canada said in 2013 his country was "really mad" because Canada made it difficult for tourists and businesspeople to travel north. The subject has been a sore point between the two countries since the Conservative government imposed the visa in 2009 after a sharp increase in the numbers of Mexican asylum seekers. Trudeau said Conservative Leader Stephen Harper has soured Canada relationship with Mexico over the last decade and promised to "do right by our continental neighbour." He said since Canada and Mexico are both members of North American Free Trade Agreement, there shouldn't be travel barriers for their citizens. He said asylum applications should be processed in a "reasonable and speedy fashion" but "there are other ways of doing that than slapping a Mexican visa that is hurting tourism and relations with our continental partner and quite frankly has hurt our growth within NAFTA." Before 2009, Mexico was becoming one of Canada largest sources of refugees. He dismissed the Conservative government claim that Mexico couldn't be a source of refugees. "We need to ensure that Canada is a country that is accepting refugees who are fleeing persecution from all sorts of places around the world for all sorts of different reasons," Trudeau said. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.