Canada’s immigration department says it still expects Ukrainians who fled the war with Russia to return to their home country once the conflict ends.
That’s regardless of comments from Immigration Minister Lena Diab, who recently acknowledged that many Ukrainians who got here to Canada on temporary visas are here to remain.
Nearly 300,000 people got here to Canada through an emergency work and study visa program that was launched after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine almost 4 years ago.
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The Ukrainian Canadian Congress is certainly one of the groups pushing for a dedicated everlasting residency stream for these visa-holders, as many don’t have enough points to qualify through Canada’s express entry system.
Nonetheless, Canada is reducing the variety of everlasting residents it’s admitting in comparison with recent years and there may be an intensive list of applications.
The wait time for those in search of everlasting residency in humanitarian and compassionate cases is greater than 10 years.
Ukrainians can apply for everlasting residency through conventional means, and IRCC data shows about 2,500 have received everlasting residency.
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