[At-Large] The visa to Canada and fall of participation

[Seun Ojedeji]

Dear all,

I think issues of visa will continue to be in the front burner of
challenges of holding face 2 face meetings and while I do not think it's
necessary to remind ourselves that every country reserves the right to
grant or reject a visa application neither will it be helpful to give a
general term to a country's decision, but it is absolutely fine for us to
develop an individual opinion which will be based on our individual
experience and these are normally not the same in this context.

That said, it's up to Atlarge/ICANN to consider whether the meetings are
truly open to all if certain country border requirements and processes can
be so exhausting. While I have read through various experience sharing of
those who got denied and got granted visa after trying again, none of them
suggest that it happened due to any action of the meeting organisers/local
host. However in certain previous ICANN meetings the intervention of local
host was quite evident.

As one who went through the Visa application process, I will say that issue
of getting granted or denied visa is just one aspect, the time it takes to
even get a decision is another major issue. IMO those who may not
physically attend the meeting will be affected more by the latter and this
is not because they applied late, it is just how complicated the
application review process of Canada can be. It is in such situation that
interventions of local host makes a difference and it is not entirely clear
to me how much impact the local host played on this particular one as it's
not evident [1].

I hope that this will be read in a positive sense of things as my intention
is not to blame the local host as they may have indeed done their best
(within their limit) but this is to serve as a feedback on the importance
of considering the type of host and her commitment thereof when determining
where next to take the most important of the 3 annual ICANN meetings.

I wish everyone attending the event a safe journey and yes I hope some of
us originally scheduled to attend will try to make good use of remote
participation. Do have a wonderful meeting experience as usual.

Regards
1. This is a personal opinion based on my experience.
Sent from my mobile
Kindly excuse brevity and typos

On Sun, 27 Oct 2019, 15:25 Johan Helsingius, <julf at julf.com> wrote:

> On 27-10-19 12:23, peters omoragbon wrote:
>
> > I attend international
> > conferences especially as a United Nations Permanent Rep and A UNFCCC
> > Designated Contact person. What the organizers do is to agree on a code
> > with the host country foreign affairs ministry for ACCREDITED Delegates.
>
> Unlike the UN, ICANN is a multistakeholder organisation, and ICANN
> meetings are open to anyone, not just accredited participants.
>
>         Julf
>
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