(Ottawa) The humanitarian crisis in Ukraine is expected to be so great that neither the opposition parties nor the Ukraine-Canadian Congress have set a target for these refugees to Canada. The government has not determined anything yet.
Posted yesterday at 7:20pm.
“We don’t yet know the scale of the humanitarian crisis,” Orest Zakidalsky, a senior policy adviser to the Canadian-Ukrainian Congress, said in an interview on Monday. The organization is working with the federal government to prepare a special family reunification sponsorship program that Immigration Minister Sean Fraser announced Thursday.
“We’re at 12And the On the day of the war, 1.5 million people fled.”
In 2015, Justin Trudeau’s government said it was ready to take in 25,000 Syrian refugees. The target was later adjusted upwards, and approximately 40,000 Syrians eventually arrived in the country.
The liberals also raised the goal of welcoming Afghan refugees from 20,000 to 40,000 as they tried to persuade Canadians to be re-elected six months ago. Kabul, the country’s capital, fell to the Taliban on August 15, two days after the start of the election campaign.
“Canada is ready to take in Ukrainians fleeing Vladimir Putin’s war and there is no limit to the number of applications we will be willing to accept,” Immigration Minister Sean Fraser said last week. Last time, when two new programs were announced to let people fleeing this war come here.
The government wants to approve as many applications for emergency travel permits as possible that will allow Ukrainians to stay in Canada for two years. However, the special sponsorship program for family reunification will be ended, according to Secretary Fraser’s office. But in general, there is no cap on Ukrainian refugees.
The uncertainty surrounding the war makes it difficult to know how many Ukrainians will want to take advantage of these new ways to immigrate to Canada, particularly the temporary visa route.
“I would be really surprised if there were thousands coming because we are still far away and the situation is very uncertain, so I have the impression that there are people who might want to stay near their home or from their spouses who have stayed there,” said the president of the Quebec Immigration Lawyers Association Stephanie Valois.
She says she has received few calls from Ukrainians so far.
None of the opposition parties asked the government to set a target. “I don’t think it’s possible to set a target when we don’t know how many people are going to flee Ukraine,” said Conservative Representative James Bezan, who is himself Ukrainian. However, he noted that without a goal, it would be difficult to plan for the Ukrainians to come to Canada.
The situation is too urgent for the government to focus on setting a target, according to Quebec bloc member Alexis Brunel Ducep, his party’s immigration spokesman. “Now is not the time to waste time finding a target because we will be losing manpower at the expense of that potential target,” he said. There is no common measure with what has been previously experienced because if we look closely at the numbers, this will be the largest refugee influx into Europe since World War II. »
The Quebecoa bloc is asking the government to establish an “air bridge”, that is, to lease planes to be able to quickly transport Ukrainians who have obtained a temporary visa.
The leader of the New Democratic Party (NDP) did not want to bring up a character either. “It is difficult to have a target at the moment because the crisis is ongoing and we do not yet know the full impact of what is happening,” Jagmeet Singh explained. But we must do everything we can now to create an easy, simple and effective system for Ukrainians who want to leave the country. »
Singh wrote to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday asking him to quickly develop a plan to welcome Ukrainian refugees in cooperation with provinces, territories and cities. The NDP also wants the Canadian government to help ethnic minorities and members of the LGBTQ2s+ community who face discrimination while trying to flee Ukraine.
Canada already has a large Ukrainian diaspora of 1.3 million people.
There is no limit in Quebec
There is no limit to the number of Ukrainian refugees that Quebec is preparing to receive according to its means, the Minister of Immigration, French and Integration, Jean Boulet, said Monday in Montreal. He was running through town announcing the roughly 5 million to 14 community organizations working to welcome, integrate and screen newcomers.
The minister said he does not yet know how many Ukrainian refugees in Quebec will be called to welcome or when they will start arriving, these questions are Ottawa’s responsibility. Despite his call with his Federal counterpart, Sean Fraser, Mr. Boulet made it clear that it was still too early to know the answer to these questions.
“We don’t have an estimate. I’ve been talking about it with Mr. Fraser. We have no limits.” […] We will respect our reception capacity, but at the moment, when I was in the organisations, even in Montreal last week, they are ready. “We are waiting for them,” he said.
Mobilization is underway to prepare for this reception. The minister explained that about 95 organizations are on alert and that the recruitment of people who speak Ukrainian and Russian is going well.
Canadian Press
