Yuriy’s Notebook: Ukrainians Wonder, Stay or Go?

In the long history of Ukrainian immigration to Canada, the big wave that started in 2022 was enabled by a new program allowing easy entry. But a catch has clouded our hopes. The special visa granted us was for just three years.

That fact has us constantly watching for pronouncements from Ottawa to shed light on our fates. We felt relief when, in April of last year, then-Immigration Minister Marc Miller said that even if our visas expire, “We’re not sending anyone back in the face of the aggression of a nuclear aggressor like Russia and as long as the war is ongoing,”

Whew. Then, last month, Miller and his ministry doubled down.

Our visas originally granted us an open work permit for three years (an open work permit means that someone may work for any employer). On Feb. 27, Miller made it official that we “now have until March 31, 2026, to apply for a new open work permit valid for up to three years, renew an existing work permit or apply for a new study permit.”

So no one is kicking us out any time soon. Still, when you are forced to always have one eye on the exit door, it can be hard to settle in and focus on all it takes to adapt to a new land.

For some Ukrainians who dream of life here the dilemma is especially stark, forcing them to choose between family and Canada.

Some background. The Canada-Ukraine Authorization for Emergency Travel, or CUAET, was created on March 17, 2022 to help Ukrainian nationals and their family members find safety in Canada. Over the next two years, Canada received 1,189,320 applications and approved 962,612.

On April 1, 2024, the door shut. CUAET came to a stop, no more applicants accepted.

When the door was still open, just getting through it could seem painstaking. For most of my Ukrainian friends who’ve joined me in coming here, the wait time for a CUAET visa ranged from four to six months. I received mine five months after filling out the application.

That may feel not too long to wait if you are living a normal life at home. But it can seem agonizingly slow if you’ve been forced to flee danger and are scraping by in other countries in Europe while waiting for Canadian visas.

One result is that many Ukrainians who eventually received approval to come here decided instead to remain in Europe. During those months they spent waiting in countries like Poland, Germany or Czech Republic, they filled their time learning the local language, looking for work and finding permanent housing. By the time they received assurance Canada would welcome them, they’d already spent a lot of energy, time and money adapting to life in new country. Many told me they just couldn’t muster the energy to go to Canada and start all over again.

I think that’s a key reason why just 298,128 Ukrainians of the nearly one million eventually approved decided to carry through on coming to Canada.

What about the 20 per cent of Ukrainians who aren’t approved? Why might that happen and how can it force people to choose between Canada and family?

Loved ones torn

Allow me to share some unfortunate situations I commonly hear about within the Ukrainian community who share their stories online and in coffee shops.

Let’s start with the fact that since 2014 Ukraine has lost parts of the country to Russian control. Those include Crimea and a significant part of the territories in the east of the country that border Russia — the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Of the tens of thousands of children who have been born and raised in those Russian-controlled areas over the past decade, most have not been granted Ukrainian birth certificates and passports. They received Russian documents instead.

So, when Ukrainian families from these zones have applied for Canadian visas under the CUAET, many have received a heartbreaking response. The parents, who hold Ukrainian documents from the days of pre-Russian rule, receive visas. But their children are rejected.

That’s what happened to close friends of mine who I’d hoped might join me in Canada. The husband and wife, who lived in Crimea, received Canadian visas but their two-year-old daughter was denied because while she has a Ukrainian birth certificate she doesn’t possess a Ukrainian passport. The couple had to abandon their dream of immigrating to Canada.

Another common problem arises for families in which a Ukrainian is married to a citizen of another country. According to the terms of the CUAET program, all Ukrainians and members of their family can obtain a visa. But that sounds much more straightforward than the reality.

Take the example of a Ukrainian friend who lives in an apartment building next to mine in East Vancouver. She applied for the visa together with her husband, a Jordanian citizen. She received approval for her application in 2022 and moved to Vancouver to find an apartment and work while waiting for her husband to get a visa and come to her. She succeeded at both.

But for two years they waited on opposite sides of the ocean for her husband’s visa to be approved by the Canadian government. They poured energy and hours into corresponding with immigration officials, seeking help from lawyers and from a member of the Canadian Parliament. Finally, in 2024, a few months before the CUAET program was slated to end on April 1, the visa was approved.

This story had a happy ending, but many similar ones haven’t. It’s proven just too hard for many families to endure up to two years of separation and uncertainty.

Searching the horizon

All of us who have arrived under the CUAET program face a looming question made more pressing by current headlines saying a ceasefire in Ukraine may happen soon and even that some kind of peace agreement will be hammered out.

Will we then have to go home? What if we’ve fallen in love with Canada and want to live here indefinitely?

There is currently no special pathway to permanent residence for Ukrainians staying in Canada as temporary residents. Ukrainians may apply for permanent residence on humanitarian and compassionate grounds, but those of us here under CUAET do not have refugee status, so are unlikely to be awarded “humanitarian PR.”

There’s another path, but it’s no sure thing. Ukrainians may apply for permanent residence through federal or provincial competitive programs that favour applicants with strong job qualifications.

In attempting to figure out which newcomers “are most likely to succeed economically,” the federal Express Entry system ranks candidates, assigning scores based on factors including their age, education, qualifications and language skills. The winners get approvals to stay.

Each province has its own version of such sorting. British Columbia’s Provincial Nominee Program seeks “high-demand foreign workers and experienced entrepreneurs.” In other words, don’t bother unless your occupation is considered “in-demand” and you have a full-time job offer from a B.C. employer, a minimum of two years of work experience in the occupation, can demonstrate you have ample funds for living, have a good command of English and will be paid the standard wage in B.C. for your line of work.

In these competitions, the bar is high for most recently arrived Ukrainians, who tend to have a short record of skilled employment in Canada, lack Canadian education and have poor knowledge of English or French.

If we don’t make it through the hoops described above, there’s really no firm guarantee we can stay in Canada past the moment our visas have run out and/or Canadian authorities decide Ukraine is safe enough to send us home.

This is a topic many Ukrainians who’ve sought a safe life in Canada often nervously discuss among themselves. We count the months until the end of our visas and work permits and we hope to receive more clearly hopeful information from the government.

On the social networks where many of us hang out, I see more and more posts from fellow Ukrainians saying time is ticking. We shouldn’t wait to find out if Canada really wants us around, many say. It’s better to leave and try to start a new life again in a new place.

Others, however, are beginning to put down roots. For me, a major turning point came when I landed a job. I am grateful for the work, though it’s not exactly what I expected when I left behind in Crimea the media executive role I held there. I told myself at the time that I’d put my PhD to use somewhere, somehow.

As I’ll explain next week, so far that assumption has turned out to be a lot of garbage.

This series is supported by funding from the Hummingbird Foundation.