Canada has promised to resettle an “unlimited” number of displaced Ukrainians, and officials in the country’s Prairie region want to be the first choice for those fleeing Russia’s invasion. But despite strong public support, bureaucratic delays at the federal level have highlighted the challenge of quickly resettling those fleeing war.
The United Nations estimates more than two and a half million people have escaped Ukraine since Russia invaded the country in late February, creating the worst refugee crisis on the European continent since the upheaval of the second world war.
While eastern European nations have absorbed the vast majority of refugees, Canada, home to the second largest Ukrainian diaspora, has agreed to resettle as many people as it can amid a mounting humanitarian crisis.
“We will allow [Ukrainians] to study, work, when they come here,” Justin Trudeau told reporters during a trip to Poland last week. “Many of them will hope to be able to return to Ukraine after this conflict, many will also choose to continue their lives in Canada, and we look forward to welcoming as many as we can.”
The federal government has created a new visa systempermitting Ukrainians to stay in Canada for as long as two years – but those looking to travel won’t receive federal government support afforded to many refugees.
Instead, new arrivals will probably have to rely on the generosity of Canadians to get settled.
“There’s a huge outpouring of support for hosting families right now,” said Ostap Skrypnyk, a member of the Manitoba chapter of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress and vice-president of the Canada Ukraine Foundation.
The Congress has been so overwhelmed with interest in helping resettle families that it had to temporarily pause the process after receiving more than 700 applications in less than 48 hours.
“And these people are signing up to help not even knowing what will be asked of them.”
Last week, Saskatchewan’s minister of immigration said his government wanted to make the province the first choice for Ukrainians, announcing hundreds of thousands in funding to help the resettlement process. Saskatchewan has one of the largest Ukrainian populations in Canada, with 13% of residents identifying with Ukrainian heritage, many of whose ancestors came to farm the land under government programs in previous decades.
Despite popular support for resettlement, Canada’s recent failure to resettle tens of thousands of Afghan refugees as promised has prompted concern its pledge for “unlimited” Ukrainians might fall short. Since early March, Canada has resettled only 8,580 of the promised 40,000 Afghan refugees since the country was taken over by Taliban forces in August 2021.
“Will the visa system be inundated when it goes live next week? Will it be able to hold and will they be able to really process people in a timely manner?” said Skrypnyk. “We’ll just have to wait and see. But when you build up new architecture, there are always blips.”
Federal immigration minister Sean Fraser told CBC News that his department can “do more than one thing at a time” amid worry the government’s recent focus on Ukraine would once again delay those efforts to aid Afghans and also slow down new visa applications.
Once families are approved, documents will be issued in as little as two weeks, meaning the first wave could arrive in early April.
“Seeing images of war and this huge influx of people in Poland and Slovakia, there’s been this sense of helplessness in the Ukrainian community here,” said Skrypnyk.
“And so when these first families began arriving, there’s finally something we can do for them. We can help.”
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George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism