Canada should ease visa requirements to allow more Ukrainian refugees: report

Calgary — New report says Canada is Change federal visa policy to expedite the entry of Ukrainian refugees.

Compared with other countries, hundreds of people have been displaced since the Russian invasion, according to a University of Calgary School of Public Policy study released Thursday. We accept 10,000 Ukrainians. Eastern European country in February.

"Applications by Ukrainians are starting to far exceed the number allowed by the Canadian government, and we don't even have a clear picture of how many Ukrainians are entering the country. said author Robert. falconer.

Statistics show that the Canada-Ukraine Emergency Travel Authorization (CUAET) program to quickly obtain visas and temporary residence permits for Ukrainians and their families is inadequate, he said.

As of June 22, there were approximately 190,000 Ukrainians applying to enter Canada, up from her 140,000 nearly a month ago.

Falconer said the program, which requires immigrants to obtain visas, is why Canada lags behind other countries. Most notably Ireland has exempted visa requirements.

"One of his objections within a parliamentary committee was that if Ukrainians were included, Russian spies would use it to infiltrate the system." He said.

"Russian espionage does exist, but refugee channels are one of the most inefficient ways to get Russian spies into the country."

} Falconer said that with the right resources, federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies can manage the security risks associated with visa processing. He recommends that Canada either adopt the Irish model or adopt another option of checking visas once people arrive.

If you haven't, I think you're doing something called the on-arrival model that many countries do, where when you arrive at the airport you have to wait a while for government officials to perform security checks. said Falconer.

"You could do some risk assessment and scrutinize an eight-year-old kid who is probably not a Russian spy, but an unaccompanied male in his mid-twenties... Buck You can hold them while we process ground checks, and then let them enter the country.Get them to a safe place first and then process them from there."

Falconer said. , said that an overwhelming majority of Canadians support accepting a large number of Ukrainian refugees, and that our country has the highest proportion of people of Ukrainian descent after Ukraine and Russia.

According to the report, Canada and the United Kingdom have adopted similar processes for accepting Ukrainian refugees, with comparable numbers.

According to it, the number of Ukrainian refugees per capita who arrived in Ireland in his first two months of the invasion was about 13 times higher than in Britain.

Falconer said the report's findings will be forwarded to the federal government, but it is unclear whether that will lead to any relaxation of requirements.

"I think they're probably aware. I think they're very, very, very concerned about how overall immigration files are generally going, more than Ukrainians."