Canadian Prime Minister Harper met with his Czech counterpart Petr Nečas and, according to the Czech press, discussed the return of failed Czech asylum seekers now in Canada. Canada wants a new treaty with the Czech Republic to facilitate that process. The Czechs are more interested in getting Canada to drop its visa requirement on Czech citizens. This is all part of an effort to clear away irritants as Canada tries to negotiate a free trade agreement with the European Union (EU).

The folks who are getting in the way of the trade deal are the Roma (or “Gypsies”), who started coming to Canada from the Czech Republic in the 1990s, seeking asylum. At that time the Roma refugee acceptance rate was very high – often exceeding 80 per cent. Officials of the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board judged that the Czech Roma were victims both of severe social and official discrimination and of violence at the hands of skinheads and others, from which the Czech government could not adequately protect them.

Read more on http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/karl-nerenberg/2012/05/hill-dispatches-media-and-politicians-fail-investigate-facts-a

Share your opinion on http://debatewise.org/debates/30695-are-the-roma-confusing-canada-eu-relations

Registration via http://debatewise.org/register