Flore Ramanantsoa, a television journalist from Madagascar was refused a Canadian visa to attend the last week's Lutheran World Federation assembly in Winnipeg.

Immigration Canada felt she was a threat to the health, safety or security of Canadians.

They suspected, without basis, that Ramanantsoa and two other women delegates from the African country planned to find husbands in Canada and stay here.

Four other men from Madagascar were granted visas to the conference but all the women who applied were refused.

The female delegates from Madagascar were not alone.

In a series of events that smacks of racism and sexism, Immigration Canada denied 51 delegates and staff visas to the conference.

All of them were from Asian and African countries.

Those refused visas are from Ethiopia, Madagascar, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Senegal, Rwanda, Cameroon, Philippines, India and Indonesia.

India was the most affected, with 26 people locked out.

Delegates who protested the obviously selective exercise said the fact that those who did not get visas are all from Third World countries shows off Canada's double standards.

They have a point.

Immigration Minister Denis Coderre said, in a letter that the visas were denied "for very good reasons" and that Canadians expect his department to "weed out those who are inadmissible for a number of reasons, including criminality."

Manitoba's Minister of Veterans Affairs, Rey Pagtakhan denied there was racism in granting visas.

But the Ramanantsoa case and that of others lay bare a different story and a distasteful truth.

When the actual figures are tallied, the bottom line was that white Lutheran delegates had no problem with Immigration Canada while the non-whites had loads.

The episode, delegates said, was no error, but one that was absolutely deliberate and well calculated to exclude from Canadian soil conference delegates whose skin colour and economic circumstances did not suit the tastes of Ottawa.

Immigration Canada also refused to take into account that the Lutheran World Federation has not had a single participant abscond or not return to their home country since it's inaugural assembly in 1947.

One can only imagine the impact of this selective exercise as the 600 participants in the Lutheran World Federation assembly return home to 76 countries to spread the word among 61.7 million members of Lutheran church about Canada's visa denials

What kind of message are we sending to international bodies that are seeking a gathering place to bring together people from rich and poor countries

Lutheran World Federation General Secretary, Ishmael Noko has written to the Canadian authorities, seeking clarification.

"We would like to find a way to close this matter with the government of Canada. This is a wound that needs to be healed," he said.

It is too late now to save Canada's international reputation from the damage the selective visa denials have caused.

But it is never too late to learn from a mistake.

Immigration minister Denis Coderre must conduct an inquiry into this fiasco, explain to the Lutheran World Federation what happened and make sure that his department's racist and sexist tilts are corrected.