(Ottawa) In less than two weeks, the Canadian government has received more than 60,000 requests for emergency travel authorization from Ukrainians and their family members. But this program plunges applicants into “endless administrative chaos”, and it must be abandoned in favor of the creation of an air gateway, believes the Bloc Québécois.
Posted at 4:15 p.m.
Since launching the Canada-Ukraine Emergency Travel Authorization program on March 17, the federal government has received an average of more than 5,000 applications each day. The office of the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Sean Fraser, indicates that they have noticed an upward trend in recent days, without explaining it.
Canada is ready to temporarily welcome an “unlimited” number of refugees who have fled their country since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24. The federal fast-track program offers Ukrainians and their family members “prolonged temporary status and allows them to work, study and stay in Canada until they can safely return to their country” .
But it is weighed down by a bureaucratic machine that “plunges Ukrainians into endless administrative chaos that prevents them from taking refuge in Quebec and Canada”, strongly denounced the Bloc’s spokesperson for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, demanding that the program be scrapped.
How is it possible that after 33 days of war, there is only one center – in Poland – where refugees can have their biometrics done? It is now that refugees have to flee to Slovakia or Portugal to obtain services from Canada […] They are forced to flee again, always further, to circumvent the incompetence of the federal government.
Bloc Québécois Critic for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe
“The emergency travel authorization is a failure. Will the government put an end to it and create an air bridge? “, he hammered during question period in the House.
Minister Fraser’s parliamentary secretary, Marie-France Lalonde, did not answer his question. She pleaded, however, that biometric instruction letters were being sent to client applicants “every four hours,” that the government was “increasing the number of biometric unit employees in the regions,” and that Ottawa was working with a series of partners “including airline partners”.
According to figures provided by the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), 11,827 Ukrainian nationals, including Canadian permanent residents, arrived on Canadian soil between 1er January and March 27. Of this number, 6,314 Ukrainian citizens (including Canadian permanent residents) arrived between February 21 and March 27.
Air Canada and Air Transat interested
At least two airlines are interested in chartering aircraft to help with the effort.
At Air Canada, it is reported to be in talks with Ottawa on this subject. “Discussions are still continuing with the government, but we have nothing new to communicate at this stage,” wrote the carrier’s spokesperson, Pascale Déry.
On the Air Transat side, we reached out to the government. “As we have done in the past (for Syria, in particular), we have offered our know-how and our support to the government if they wish to organize an operation of this type”, wrote the spokesman of the company, Christophe Hennebelle.