Olga Tchetvertnykh says she’s anxious to bring her Ukrainian family to Canada while they wait for the bloodshed in their country to end.
The Ukraine-born entrepreneur and mother, long based in Toronto, is today trying to help her family and other Ukrainians seek refuge in Canada. She has money — she works with her husband at their own merchant bank —as well as a lawyer and a translator on hand. Even so, she says she’s struggling to meet Canada’s immigration requirements to bring her loved ones to safety.
“My family fled to Slovakia thinking they were only leaving for a few days,” says Tchetvertnykh, noting her aunt, two cousins and their daughters didn’t bring all the identification, employment records and bank statements that Canada requires.
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
She says Ukrainians are required to go to a Canadian embassy to submit biometric data. They could to Bratislava or Bucharest, but there is a three-week waiting list, according to people waiting — and they have no way to get there.
Her family has run out of cash and their Ukrainian bank accounts are frozen (reportedly like other accounts with banks in Russian-controlled zones). They don’t have a car. Many Ukrainian refugees left their vehicles at the lineup to the border to walk, exhausted and hungry, the final kilometres — sometimes as many as 20 — to safety, she says.
Tchetvertnykh — a former Miss Kyiv — and other Ukrainian Canadians say they’re angry at Immigration Minister Sean Fraser’s insistence that Canada will not waive visa rules for Ukrainians. Fraser has said that necessary changes to the process could take 14 weeks to implement.
However, Canada welcomed 25,000 Syrian refugees in just 14 weeks in 2016, says Dr. Wendy Cukier, a founder of Lifeline Afghanistan: “We know how to do this.”
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW
The Liberal government declared all Syrians to be prima facie refugees so they could bypass much of the bureaucracy, and then the government established outposts in a number of countries to expedite resettlement.
YOU MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN...
COVID kills a man in his 30s as pace of vaccinations keeps falling
WATERLOO REGION
COVID kills a man in his 30s as pace of vaccinations keeps falling
1 hr ago
Woman facing impaired charge after pedestrian struck in Kitchener
CRIME
Woman facing impaired charge after pedestrian struck in Kitchener
1 day ago
Canada also evacuated 15,000 Lebanese by ship during the Israel-Hezbollah conflict in just a few weeks in 2006, according to Ellen Stensholt, who was a senior public servant on the mission. “It took creative thinking,” she says. “But we did it then, we can do it now.”
In the case of the Lebanese, many refugees also had Canadian, U.S., Australian and other passports, and so had no visa issues. The Canadian government rented Turkish ferries and other ships to get those refugees to safety, Stensholt says.
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/sqnr/where-i-watch-spider-man-no-way-home-switzerland-950599
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/sqnr/where-i-watch-spider-man-no-way-home-united-kingdom-950598
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/sqnr/where-i-watch-spider-man-no-way-home-usa-950595
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/sqnr/spider-man-no-way-home-2021-yts-torrent-yify-movies-123-950582
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/sqnr/where-watch-spider-man-no-way-home-2022-free-online-stream-950633
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/sqnr/where-watch-spider-man-no-way-home-2022-full-english-950631
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/sqnr/watch-spider-man-no-way-home-online-streaming-now-usa-950629
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/sqnr/watch-spider-man-no-way-home-free-online-streaming-at-home-950630
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/sqnr/official-watch-spider-man-no-way-home-online-for-free-950627
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/sqnr/where-watch-spider-man-no-way-home-2021-online-free-950626
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/sqnr/watch-spider-man-no-way-home-2022-full-streaming-usa-950625
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/sqnr/how-watch-spider-man-no-way-home-online-free-reddit-950624
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/sqnr/watch-spider-man-no-way-home-online-for-free-stream-950623
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/sqnr/watch-spider-man-no-way-home-online-for-free-950622
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/sqnr/how-watch-spider-man-no-way-home-2021-full-english-950621
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/sqnr/watch-spider-man-no-way-home-free-online-streaming-at-home-950620
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/sqnr/watch-spider-man-no-way-home-online-for-free-stream-950619
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/sqnr/watch-spider-man-no-way-home-online-full-for-free-950617
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/sqnr/watch-spider-man-no-way-home-online-for-free-123movie-950614
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/sqnr/watch-spider-man-no-way-home-free-streaming-australia-yts-950611
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/sqnr/official-123movie-spider-man-no-way-home-2021-google-drive-950607
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/sqnr/watch-spider-man-no-way-home-online-streaming-now-canada-950605