The Current - Ukrainians who fled war, living in limbo

Episode Date: January 20, 2026

We'll hear from Oleh Zadoretskyy who came to Canada in 2023 after the war broke out in Ukraine. We'll also hear from Halifax immigration lawyer Elizabeth Wozniak about what options peel like Oleh have, and Senator Stan Kutcher who has been advocating for a permanent pathway to PR for the Ukrainians who came to Canada seeking safety, and now can't return home.

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This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. With the war in Ukraine approaching its four-year mark, many of the 300,000 Ukrainians who fled to Canada are now living in limbo. Gala Darkina is one of them. She recounted the first weeks of the war at a media conference, held last month by the Ukrainian-Canadian Congress. Before coming to Canada, I worked as the general manager of a large hotel complex,

which was located in Erping, a small seat in. not far from Kiev, next to Boucher. When there was started, we decided to go closer to my work. Within a few days, the hotel complex was bombed, completely destroyed. From that first night, we spent our time in a shelter. It was incredibly frightening. And if anyone tells you that Kiev can be a safe place in Ukraine, I can tell you for sure that there is no truly safe place in Ukraine.

Gala Darkina and her two children arrived in Canada after finding a way out of Ukraine through Romania. They've been here in Canada for three years. I'm settled here and I truly love living here in Canada. It feels safe. I love working here. I love the environment, the people and the most important I love raising my children in this country. Today my youngest son speaks only English. It will be difficult for him to adjust to a new school environment if he is forced to return to Ukraine.

My daughter decided to join French early immersion classes when she was in grade 7. I was very touched to receive the email from her teacher praising my daughter for how brave and hard working she is. Despite all of these achievements, I'm not eligible for permanent. residence. There is no program for me and my children. Like Gala, many Ukrainians who were invited to come to Canada are now hoping for an extension to their work permits. They face a seemingly endless weight to permanent residency or have no pathway at all to become permanent residence in Canada. Ola Zarareski is from a small town in Western Ukraine. He was working in Latvia when war broke out. He moved to Halifax

with his wife and two daughters in 2023 and he's with me in our Halifax studio. Elizabeth Wozniak is an immigration lawyer in Halifax who works with Ukrainians facing these issues and she joins us on the line as well. Good morning to you both. Good morning. Good morning. Oleg, tell me just briefly, when war broke out,

why did you come here? Why did you come to Halifax? Oh, so me and my wife and the kids, we were for work in Latvia. And things didn't look well then because Ukraine was lady on the invasion and then we saw massive troops build out in Latvia as well.

There were actually Canadian armed forces. moving to Latvia all the time, allocating their equipment. So my wife said to me, look, we have to go somewhere safer, at least for the time being. And her brother is a Canadian citizen, and Canada then announced this emergency measure at the time. So we took up the offer and we applied for it. We got our visas, and that's how we arrived in Canada. And Halifax, in particular, why this city? Well, the climate is good.

It's not as pricey as Vancouver, Toronto. And the people are friendly. we like it. He, English is spoken. We sadly do not speak French, but we speak good English. So we integrated quickly. The kids like it and couldn't wish for more. Does it feel like home? It does. You've been here for, what, three years now? Yes. Yeah. And so what's, I mean, your kids like it? Tell me what the status of your family when it comes to staying in Canada. Well, my wife and I, we have temporary work permits. We are not entitled to any public benefits. We are not officially in the refugee status. All we have is temporary work permits, and we have to provide for ourselves, which you don't mind.

And you're working? sir. And so is my wife. And the kids at school, they have visitor records. And the problem with their visitor records is they expiring on the 7th of March this year. I applied for new ones a whole year ago on the 15th of January, 2025, and I still have not received them. That's a visitor permit? Visitor record. That allows them to stay here and go to school and get health care and what have you. That's right.

Right. Elizabeth, it's interesting because both Ola and Gala are working, as we heard. Their kids are going to school. The war is still going on. what are the options that they have to stay in this country? Well, it's difficult. I mean, I think that there's some context here that's important. Like a lot of the people that came on work permits will be eligible for permanent residents in certain provincial pathways, depending on what province they chose to settle in and what jobs they've got. But there's a lot of complexity to that.

And in certain cases, like if you're working remotely, let's say, for an employer overseas, or just if you have a different type, like if you're self-employed, you're not going to have a typical economic class pathway. So that leaves only sort of the humanitarian application pathway, which that's the one that has the 50-year processing time. So it can be very complicated, even in fairly, you know, seemingly simple circumstances. A 50-year processing time. In the introduction, I said that many of these people have a seemingly endless weight to permanent residency. You're not exaggerating. There's a 55-year wait before these folks could go through that process.

Is that right? Well, I mean, it doesn't feel real, and I don't think it can be real. But, yes, it's published in the immigration documents from last May that given the current backlogs and the, quote-unquote, inventory, which is what they call these, if they process them at the current rate that they're processing them, those applications will take 50 years for those humanitarian applications. So those are the ones that don't fit into the other categories. And so, yeah, that's what the government is saying. What does 55 years mean to you, Ola? Well, that's a whole lifetime. I'm 40 currently turning 40 this year together with my wife, so I'll be 95.

By then, if I make it. And at that age, that immigration status won't matter to me anymore, probably. That is, if I'm still alive. And the bigger question is, what kind of status am I going to be meanwhile all these years in? What about for your children? As you mentioned, they're on these visitor permits that allow them to go to school, allow them to get health care. You asked for an extension. Have you heard anything about that?

No. And we have contacted IOC in a few occasions about this. And all they could say is that they have received our applications and that we must wait. And while we wait, the health cards are expiring these march or ladies. So they will lose access to health care. There is no private option in Nova Scotia for them at all. and the same goes for their school attendance. They must have paperwork in hand to be able to attend school as well.

So I don't know how we're going to solve this problem. Elizabeth, as you understand it, what would it mean, I mean Ola has kind of sketched it out there, what would it mean for his children if those permits don't get extended? Well, so technically you're allowed to continue doing what you were doing before, as long as you applied before the expiry date. But with these creeping up processing times, it makes it complicated because now Olai has to go.

go and explain to a school board or a, you know, agent at the provincial health care office, that this piece of paper that says he's got an extension and process is valid status. So it just becomes really complicated. It's really a house of cards trying to get documents, you know, extended and everything is contingent on the previous, you know, expiry date. So it just becomes very complicated and it's a lot of obstacles, even in the most straightforward situations. You have said, these are your words, that it feels like the. rug has been pulled out from under people like Ola. Why did you use that language, Elizabeth? Well, I think it's fair to say, you know, when people are coming to Canada, you know,

especially when in this Ukrainian evacuation situation and other countries, Canada's giving them work permits and status for three years. But then obviously, integration and settlement is really important to Canadian immigration. It's something we do really well. But then after the three years are up, it becomes really complicated for some of those individuals to be able to stay. And to tell a family with kids who've learned the language and integrated, made friends, some of them, you know, they've only been to school in Canada, to tell them that, you know, sorry, you're at the end of the road, it's not fair, and it's not in keeping with Canada's values in terms of our immigration system in general

and our values, you know, as a society. I said in the introduction that these were people that were invited to Canada as well. What does that mean? Well, exactly. And I think, you know, it's all well and good for Canada to say, okay, we're going to be the hero in the situation. We'll bring you over and we'll give you work permits and we'll set you up. And then three years later to have no pathway for people to apply for permanent residents, or at least for some people to apply for permanent residents. It just doesn't seem fair and it seems, you know, fairly disingenuous. We asked the federal immigration minister, Lena Dieb, to be on the program this morning. She declined. We did get a statement from. from our office. In part, it reads, the government created an additional pathway for permanent residency for the people of Ukraine. The demand for this program has far outweighed the number of spaces available in categories where applications exceed plan targets under immigration

levels plan. The wait times are longer. What do you make of that, Elizabeth? Well, you know, of course. I mean, if you're going to bring 300,000 people over, 300,000 and people over on work permits and only create open a pathway for 2,500 or, you know, 10,000 even, of course you're going to create a huge demand. And the other thing is there's an obvious solution here. Like, the system isn't broken. The priorities are just misplaced. Like, this is totally, this is completely fixable. And the government can absolutely fix it if there's the will.

What's the fix if it's that straightforward? Because I think a lot of people do believe that the immigration system is broken. What's the fix from your perspective? Well, so, you know, in terms of the numbers, so humanitarian applications, for example, they've cut the numbers in half in the past year, and the backlog is, you know, four times that right now. So obviously, it's only 48,000 in the backlog, so it's not crazy. And they could easily process more humanitarian applications. As well, they've opened pathways for people to immigrate in other categories,

and those are for people who don't necessarily have to have a, worked here or lived here temporarily, you know, in the meantime. So they've created extra space in certain express entry categories and then they've limited it in others. So really it's just a matter of, you know, moving the numbers in one column to the other. Do you think that there's, and I want to get to Ola in a moment, but do you believe that that's a priority for the government? It feels like we're in a different time in terms of the conversation around immigration in this country right now. and the focus in many ways has been on bringing in people who can help build the economy in specific categories that we find to be important. Yeah, I mean, I'm an optimist, and I think Canada will do the right thing.

And I think that obviously times are really strange right now on so many levels. But people who are here, living here, who have integrated, who are contributing paying taxes and working here, absolutely there should be a pathway for them. And I think the government needs to look at that. I think that it's distracted right now. I think it's easy to say everything's broken and it can't be fixed. But I think there's absolutely a way forward. And it's not fair for somebody like, Oleg, to be stuck in this limbo where the government, you know, they're going to do, they have to do the right thing.

But when will they do that and how long is it going to take and how much stress is it going to cause all these families? Oleg, you have said that you see this as a betrayal in some ways. Why did you use that word? Well, it's not fair to the people who were invited to apply for these humanitarian pension. ways and have done so, not to have their applications processed to be met with that silence and no clarity for the future. They cannot build their futures. They don't know what awaits them.

They are integrated. They speak English, no worse than mine. They all work because they're not entitled to any kind of public benefits despite what a lot of people think because we are not refugees proper. We don't seek to become refugees proper. We just want paperwork. That's all we want. To be able to work and stay until at least this war is over and God knows when it's going

to be over because there is no end inside to it. Do you see your future here? I mean, you said that this is your home, but if the wait time is 55 years through one channel to become a permanent resident, could you imagine having to leave here and go somewhere else? Well, the big question would be way, because I did not have any other citizenship

by the Ukrainian one. That's the only passport I hold. There's bad war back home, like even in my small hometown behind the front lines, just the other day we got hit with IRBM or Ashnik, which is a massive Russian. and doomsday weapon that was designed to never be used. It's a Soviet development that was a deterrent.

It was meant to be a deterrent. And suddenly they are desperate enough to actually start using it. When it lands, there is no chance to survive. So you want to stay here. You believe this is your home? Yes. It's good to talk to you. I wish you the best of luck.

Thank you very much for coming in. Thank you. And Elizabeth, thank you. Excellent. Oleg Zararowski moved to Halifax with his wife and two daughters in 2023. He is Ukrainian, as you heard. Elizabeth Wozniak is an immigration lawyer based in Halifax, working with people like Oleg.

This ascent isn't for everyone. You need grit to climb this high this often. You've got to be an underdog that always over delivers. You've got to be 6,500 hospital staff, 1,000 doctors, all doing so much with so little. You've got to be Scarborough. Defined by our uphill battle and always striving towards new heights. And you can help us keep climbing. Donate at lovescarborough.ca.

Why BDC for my business? The timing's right. Everything's in motion. Economy's changing. It's all about automation, AI. So I said to myself, take the plunge. Yes, I need a loan, but I also need a hand from a partner who's truly working with me, helping me no matter what comes next. Not later. Now. Get ready for what's next. With BDC, you get financing and advice adapted to your projects. at BDC.ca slash financing. BDC, financing, advising, no-how. Dr. Stan Kucher is an independent senator from Halifax. He has been pushing the federal government to find a better solution for Ukrainians who fled

the war and came to Canada. He's in our trauma studio this morning. Senator Kucher, good morning to you. Good morning, Mr. Galway. I'm usually listening to you at a slightly different time in my time zone. Well, we're glad to have you in this time zone, and I'm glad to be in your town of Halifax. Why is this from your... perspective such a mess. Canada invites people here and yet it seems that suddenly the numbers don't work out in terms of how many people the government believes that it can process in a meaningful time and so you have wait times of 55 years. How did this end up being such a mess? I don't know the answer to that question, but I do know that that's not the question that we should be asking.

The question that we should be asking is how do we fix a problem that we have. Well, I think, I mean, one of the reasons why people might ask that question is because people like OLE are, I mean, the word is in limbo, but it also feels betrayed by the government. So that's why it would be a pressing question. Absolutely. Absolutely. What I meant wasn't the question wasn't worth asking. What I meant was that our focus shouldn't be on what caused a problem. Our focus should be on how do we fix the problem. Right. And if you look at it that way, then we don't have to look far as to how to fix the problem.

What is the fix from your perspective? Well, what we want to do is a win-win situation. What we want to have is a fix that will recognize the need that Canada has for people who are going to make this country grow and be strong. And we also have to recognize the need that this group of people have who are here in limbo, their home being attacked by a member of the UN Security Council, no less, and faced with the genocidal war. So we need a win-win situation, and what we've got now is a lose-lose situation.

The win-win situation is actually quite simple. The minister has the authority to open a temporary pathway to permanent residency for this group of people. that's a simple solution to the current problem. Have you spoken with the minister about that? I have. I have. She's also from Halifax. Yes, she is.

Yes, she is. And so what did she say? Well, that's a private conversation. I think the minister needs to tell you what she's going to do. We asked her to come on the program and she said no. So maybe you might offer some insight into what she said. Well, I think the minister is certainly aware of the problem after the conversations I've had with her about it.

I think the issue that we're facing here is a bureaucratic and a conceptual problem. On the bureaucratic side, there has been a huge problem in these applications that have already gone through one of the pathways that is open, but is really not open, and that is the family reunification pathway. I can't believe that in January 14, 2025, the CBC ran a story saying that there are 26,000 applications in that program, which less than 2% had been processed, and here we are a year later still talking about that program. So that program has a problem that has to be fixed. The other route that is possible for people is for the minister to open up a temporary program and bring these people who are living here, who are working here,

who are making a net benefit to this country, and bring them into this country should they choose to do so. If you do that, do you not need to open a special pathway for others who are fleeing conflict? And I'm not discounting the situation that people like, All they find themselves in,

but there are people from Sudan who are desperate to come to this country. There are people from the Congo. There are people from Gaza. Do you not need to open the pathway to others who would want to be here as well? I think that's a very important point to make, and I think that I'm glad that you made it. There are unique circumstances for each of those groups of people.

One of the things that is different about this group of people is that we're not bringing them to the country. They are already here. We're not bringing them from outside to Canada. They are already here. They don't require settlement services. But you understand how the government could find that complicated to stream for one constituency and not more while? I can understand the challenge that that brings the government.

But that is not an excuse not to move ahead on this. What responsibility do you think Canada took on when it invited people like Olive who are fleeing war in Ukraine to come here to this country? Well, I'm glad that you asked that question, Mr. Galloway, because that is a moral issue. we have taken people who are fleeing a war who have found sanctuary in this country and they are extremely grateful that Canada brought them in. Canada invited them in.

And I don't know what the thinking was at that time. I think that it was a good thing to invite people to come. Nobody knew what was going to happen with that war. But Elizabeth says that Pete, those people feel like the rug has been pulled out of them. You can understand that, of course. That's very understandable. Here they are.

They've been invited. They're here. The war rages. We have no idea what's going to happen. We have two men, Trump and Putin, who are from a zero-sum game perspective going through this. We have no idea how the outcome is going to be. And these people are here. They're in limbo.

They don't know what's going to happen next. The toll on their families, their mental health is huge. why is it that we can't fix this problem? I need to let you go, but what would you say, Ola's still here listening, what would you say to someone like him who doesn't know he wants to stay here, this is his future, he believes, but he doesn't see that pathway.

What would you say to him? I would say first, thank you for being here in Canada, and thank you for contributing to this country and helping to build this country. The second thing that I would say is don't give up hope. We're pushing on this. We think that there is a solution I think the prime minister's probably going to have to get involved in this.

And I think that we can have a win-win instead of a lose-lose. Senator Coocher, good to speak with you. Thank you very much. Thank you for having me. Stan Coocher is an independent center from Halifax. He was in our Toronto studio this morning. You've been listening to the current podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon.

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