Canada opened doors fast for Syrians and Lebanese fleeing war. Ukrainian Canadians wonder: why not now?

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 de ella 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.

She says Ukrainians are required to go to a Canadian embassy to submit biometric data. They could go 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 kilometers — 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.”

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.

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, US, 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.

Yet three weeks after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Tchetvernykh and others are still waiting for details of the Canada-Ukraine Authorization for Emergency Travel initiative announced on March 3.

“Immigration Canada says there is urgency, but we see no urgency in real life,” says Janine Kuzma, a former manager at Ukrainian Canadian Congress. She has a Ukrainian family in Poland, where more than 1.3 million Ukrainians have taken refuge. “Canada’s forms aren’t ready, and the process is a mess.”

Iryna Pryhara of the congress says her community is angry that people are fleeing for their lives and Canada just makes announcements. the prime minister earmarked $117 million on March 11 to implement Canada’s new immigration measures for Ukraine. “What that means we don’t know,” says Pryhara.

Tchetvertnykh says Canadian companies are calling saying they have jobs for Ukrainians. One of her friends of hers donated $10 million to help, she says, and others are offering accommodation. “It’s overwhelming,” she says. “But our hands are tied to bring people here.”

Canada is missing out on recruiting Ukraine’s brightest minds, Tchetvertnykh says. A company she advises, SSA Group, has technology specialists in Ukraine who are in the process of moving to other countries. “We would love to bring them to Canada.”

Ukraine has millions of talented, displaced technical workers that Canada should be green-lighting to immigrate, she says. “We should fight for them.”

Crowned Miss Kyiv in 1997, Tchetvertnykh studied law at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. Ella’s husband Sergei first saw her on TV in the pageant and met her a few months later.

Moving to Toronto in 2002 was difficult for Tchetvertnykh, who missed her family and longed to stay in Ukraine, but Sergei, who had fled the Soviet Union as a student, had “fallen in love with Canada.” A refugee himself, he sold hot dogs and worked in construction to be able to attend Western University’s Ivey Business School — “I benefited from the incredible generosity of many Canadians,” he says.

The couple have raised three boys in Toronto’s Bridle Path neighborhood and now work together in their own boutique merchant bank.

Ukrainian Canadians worry that Canada’s failure to keep its promises to Afghan refugees does not bode well for their kith and kin, says Tchetvertnykh. canada committed to bring in 40,000 Afghans on Aug. 13 but, 30 weeks later, only 8,680 have arrived. The Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada call center for Ukrainians is the same one serving Afghans.

Sergei is half Russian and has a family in Moscow, which adds to the couple’s uncertainty. Their Russian relatives are too scared to talk on the phone, given their government’s increasingly harsh crackdown on dissent. What’s more, says Tchetvertnykh, in Toronto “when I go somewhere, I get the looks and I am not even Russian. I can’t imagine how Russians feel.”

In her struggle to bring her own family to Canada, she has become an advocate and support for others. She is raising money for the Red Cross and directing Canadians friends where and how to help. Her 15-year-old son, Maxim, has also launched a successful fundraiser at Upper Canada College.

“Ukrainian Canadians have been contributing to Canada for decades,” she says. “Why are they denied an ability to bring their loved ones who are suffering to Canada?

“It is devastating.”

Canada needs to step up and let Ukrainians come without visas, she says, adding that most Ukrainians want to return to Ukraine.

“But there may not be anything to go back to.”