John of Newfoundland welcomes 166 Ukrainian refugees | War in Ukraine

A crowd was at the airport on Monday evening to welcome them to thunderous applause.

I am happysaid Stanislav, one of the first Ukrainian refugees to get off the plane, who will soon be going to work in a mine in Baie Verte.

He says he is deeply relieved to have arrived in Canada, but nevertheless worries about his father, an army officer who remained in combat, on the other side of the ocean.

Iryna, another refugee, never thought she would end up in Newfoundland.

She originally wanted to go to Toronto, but the Newfoundland government offered her a free plane ticket.

When they offered me a flight, I said ”OK, let’s go”she says. The trip was much easier than I expected.

Now well and truly arrived in the east of the country, Iryna will soon work for the airline Pal Airlines.

Newfoundlanders show their solidarity

Like many others, Matthew Della Valle held a Ukrainian flag at arm’s length outside St. John’s International Airport on Monday.

We want to welcome our Ukrainian brothers and sisters here in Newfoundland and Labradorhe shouts.

” They have been through some tough ordeals. It’s all very traumatic. We want to show them our love and tell them: ‘Listen, we are here for you, the world loves you and we are going to support you in all of this’. »

With his sister and his parents, little Samuel, who attends kindergarten, went to the Saint-Jean airport to welcome the newcomers and show them his support.

My sister has a friend from Ukraine, so we decided to take a family from Ukrainehe says.

His father, Frédéric Blouin, confirms that the family has an additional bedroom available.

For the moment, it seems that the response has been so good that we are on the waiting list. People are ready to welcome. It’s a good problem to havehe said.

A long-term preparation

In March, Newfoundland and Labrador established an immigration office in Poland. It is the only Canadian province to have done so.

Provincial government employees were then sent to Warsaw and matched with the Canadian Embassy to get a better idea of ​​the number of people who wanted to come to the country.

The Executive Director of the Association for New Canadians (ANC), Megan Morrissays his upline team with the provincial government is more than ready to welcome Ukrainian nationals.

We’ve been working on it for weeks. There are so many partners involvedshe says. We will do everything to help them settle in our province and support them.

The COMPAS Organization, located in Saint-Jean, is one of the entities that mobilize to help newcomers settle in their new home.

Our province decided to bring people back, to give them another life. We don’t know if these refugees will stay or return to Ukraine, because their status at the moment is temporary residents, but the idea is to offer them a warm welcome here, through our volunteers, at through our actionsexplains the COMPAS coordinator, Mehdi Jaouhari.

The provincial government promises that housing awaits each newcomer.

With information from Patrick Butler and Kyle Mooney