At the other end of the videoconference, the smile is there, but the anger is not hidden far behind.
“Getting out of Ukraine was not easy, drops Luc Chénier, Canadian citizen and CEO of the independent media Kyiv Post. But now, it’s returning to Canada that seems to be even more complicated, in the current context. My wife is Ukrainian. We can’t get him a visitor’s visa to leave Hungary, where we’ve taken refuge, to temporarily return to my family in Quebec and Ontario, with our two-year-old daughter. »
Thirteen days after the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, chaos also seems to have taken hold of the Canadian administration, which, despite the messages of mutual aid launched by the political class, since the start of the war in Ukraine, gives the impression of being overwhelmed by the situation.
“On television, the message sent is full of compassion, but in reality, nothing is happening,” said Mr. Chénier, who has been waiting for more than two weeks for a response from the Canadian consular authorities to the visa application for his wife, Iryna Chénier, request yet filed the day before the attack on the country by the Russian army. A war started without valid reason by Vladimir Putin.
“It’s impossible to talk to anyone. The phone lines available to us send us from one service to another, without clear direction or conclusive results. It’s deeply frustrating,” he continues from Budapest, where The duty joined him on Monday.
And he adds: “It’s complicated for us who have a rather simple situation and family waiting for us in Canada. I can hardly imagine how it must be even more difficult for people who file refugee claims in Canada. »
Last week, however, Ottawa introduced new immigration measures to help Ukrainians, both in Canada and abroad, “affected by the ongoing situation in Ukraine”. In a major crisis, an exceptional plan: the federal government has decided to apply “urgent and priority processing” of immigration applications, it is indicated on the government’s website. He also says he has put in place “new ways of communicating” with him, in addition to offering “exemptions to unvaccinated and partially vaccinated Ukrainian nationals so that they can enter Canada”.
“Normally, a visa application for a Ukrainian who wants to go to Canada takes 7 to 9 days,” says Luc Chénier. But here, we are above all in front of a closed door. »
Monday, despite calls from Homework, the Department of Global Affairs Canada preferred to remain silent on the state of the system for receiving immigration applications in Canadian consular representations in Europe. For its part, the Department of Immigration indicated that it had “strengthened [ses] actions to support those affected by the situation in Ukraine”, but remained evasive on the effectiveness of the treatment and on the number of requests received to date by Ottawa.
On February 12, expecting a declaration of war from Russia against Ukraine, Ottawa decided to temporarily suspend the activities of its embassy in Kyiv, the country’s capital, and to move its diplomatic mission to the city of Lviv. , in the west of the country. For Ukrainians on the road to exile who have left the country, visa applications now go through the Canadian embassy in Vienna, Austria, Chénier said, where applicants cannot apply in person. “We must only use an email and above all not get a response,” he summarizes.
Administrative headache
For the President of Kyiv Post, an English-language news outlet which is now continuing its mission with part of its team having left Ukraine, the administrative headache for his wife to obtain her visitor visa is now experienced as another trauma after the bombings February 24 in the morning which precipitated his departure from the country. “When we were woken up that morning by a bomb that had just exploded, at 5 a.m., next to the house, we understood that the invasion, which we did not want to believe, was happening” , says the man who moved to Ukraine 22 years ago.
While considering that he cannot predict how the sequence of events will take shape — “everything is possible since February 24”, he drops, inevitably —, Mr. Chénier says he simply wants to take shelter in the Canada for the next few weeks, maybe for the next few months, with his family. “My 17-year-old daughter, Maya, is flying out on Tuesday to live with my sister in Montreal until I arrive,” he says. “I can fly anytime with my other daughter who is Canadian, but I’m not going to leave my wife alone in Hungary, without an answer for her visa, without a clear message about the weather. take us to get it. »
On Monday, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said that 1.7 million people have already fled the war in Ukraine since the outbreak of the conflict, 200,000 more than the day before. Nearly 60% of these refugees are found in Poland, but also in Hungary, Slovakia, Moldova and Romania, from where many now hope to continue their journey to other countries, including Canada.
Last week, the Council of the European Union established temporary protection for Ukrainians taking refuge throughout its territory in order to flee the war, by granting them residence permits and guaranteeing them access to education and the labor market. The temporary measure will remain in effect for one year.
“Europe is doing everything to make life easier for those fleeing Ukraine because of the war,” said Mr. Chénier. And one would expect Canada to do the same,” he concludes.