Will Ukrainians be able to enter Canada without a visa?
According to preliminary estimates, more than a million Ukrainian immigrants could bring their relatives to Canada.
Canadian politicians have called on the government to allow visa-free entry from Ukraine to Canada, at least on a short-term basis. They believe that a disaster is about to unfold, forcing one to five million refugees to urgently leave Ukraine.
Immigration Minister Sean Fraser has not yet given an answer to the question of when Canada will grant free entry to Ukrainians, but an Immigration Department spokesman said that two visa centers, in Kiev and Lviv, continue to process applications from Ukrainians wishing to move, although most recently the Canadian embassy in Kiev was closed due to international tensions.
Andrey Bukvich, Charge d'Affaires of the Ukrainian Embassy in Ottawa, said that he was not going to rush the Canadian government, but considered the reluctance to grant visa-free entry strange, given the "special relations" of the countries.
Last year, Canada and Ukraine created a working group to "identify and improve mobility opportunities for Ukrainians wishing to come to Canada after restrictions related to COVID-19 are lifted. But the percentage of Ukrainians who are granted Canadian visas is rather small: Each year Canada approves about 70% of visa applications, which means that about 20,000 Ukrainian citizens get the opportunity to cross the Canadian border.
