Immigration Minister Sean Fraser announced Thursday the federal government has created two new pathways for Ukrainians fleeing their war-torn country to come to Canada — part of a plan to accept an “unlimited number” of people who want to leave.
To start, Fraser said his department has created a new visa category that will allow a limitless number of Ukrainians to come to Canada to live, work or study here for up to two years.
People accepted under the Canada Ukraine Authorization For Emergency Travel program will have an open work or study permit and employers will be free to hire as many Ukrainians as they want.
Fraser said the federal government is waiving most of the typical visa requirements but applicants will still need to supply biometrics and undergo a background screening process before leaving for Canada. The application process will open in two weeks’ time.
Fraser said the department is prepared for a possible influx of Ukrainians and there are biometric kits and personnel ready to assist would-be applicants at diplomatic posts in Warsaw, Vienna and Bucharest and at 30 other locations throughout Europe. Canada is also waiving application fees for all Ukrainians who want to avail themselves of this program.
NDP wants Canada to drop visa requirement
Fraser also announced the government is introducing an “expedited path” to permanent residency for Ukrainians with family in Canada. The minister said a “wider circle of family members” will be able to sponsor Ukrainians who want to come to Canada on a more permanent basis.
Some critics, including NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, have called on the government to drop the visa requirement altogether to allow all Ukrainians to travel to Canada unencumbered.
WATCH | Canada introducing two new pathways for Ukrainians fleeing war to come to this country:
Canada announces new options for Ukrainians to come to Canada
5 hours ago
Duration 2:41
Immigration Minister Sean Fraser announced new programs that will help support Ukrainians fleeing war make their way to Canada to work, study or reunite with their families. 2:41
Asked about the possibility of visa-free travel for Ukrainians, Fraser said that sort of change would require 12 to 14 weeks of work to implement because the department’s IT systems would need “certain renovations” and airlines would have to change their normal processes. He said the situation is urgent and there’s no time for a three-month delay.
Fraser also said it’s prudent to conduct background checks on all applicants to weed out any Russian collaborators. He said a blanket visa waiver would mean some people could “slip through the cracks,” including people aligned with Russia who have attacked Ukrainian forces in the breakaway regions of the Donbas.
The Ukrainian Canadian Congress said the new pathways will help some of the nearly one million people who’ve already fled the country.
“Canada, together with all civilized nations, is mobilizing in support of efforts to help these innocent people. Our community is grateful,” the group’s president, Alexandra Chyczij, said in a media statement.
“Russia is trying to destroy Ukrainian cities and towns from the air. These are crimes against humanity that are causing a humanitarian catastrophe not seen in Europe since World War II.”
Canada slaps massive tariff on all Russian imports
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland also announced Thursday more measures to tighten the screws on the Russian economy.
As punishment for what Freeland called a “barbaric” invasion of Ukraine, Canada is slapping a steep 35 per cent tariff on all exports from both Russia and Belarus — a country that has been used as a staging ground by Russian troops. The change could effectively halt all trade between Canada and these former Soviet bloc countries.
Canada is also levying sanctions on two major Russian oil and gas producers, Rosneft and Gazprom. The move follows an earlier decision to halt all petroleum imports from Russia.
With the addition of these two major oil companies, Canada has now sanctioned more than 1,000 Russian individuals and entities.
WATCH: The refugee crisis at the Poland-Ukraine border is getting worse
Trudeau says Canada’s response to Ukrainian refugees is built off the Syrian refugee crisis
1 hour ago
Duration 2:17
Trudeau said ‘we are guided by the same values, the same principles but adjust to what the needs are on the ground.’ 2:17
Freeland said Canada and its G7 partners already have imposed the strongest sanctions ever inflicted on a major economy. She said “more will follow in the days to come” as Russian forces continue to bombard Ukrainian cities with rockets and missiles.
“We will do everything in our power to make sure President Putin and his accomplices pay the price of this grave historical mistake,” Freeland said. “We cannot allow him to succeed and we will not.”
Freeland said Western actions have crippled the Russian economy.
The country’s central bank has hiked the benchmark interest rate to 20 per cent — a move that will obliterate Russian savings and push up the price of everything. The country’s stock exchange has been shuttered for four days.
Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland, left, and Minister of National Defence Anita Anand hold a press conference in Ottawa on Thursday, March 3, 2022. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)
Two major credit rating agencies, Moody’s and Fitch, have downgraded Russian government debt to junk status, which will make it increasingly difficult for Putin and his regime to borrow any money to fund its war machine. The country’s currency, the ruble, has been on a precipitous decline since the invasion and the resulting sanctions, dropping in value by some 30 per cent against the U.S. dollar.
“The economic costs of the Kremlin’s barbaric war machine are already high and they will continue to rise,” Freeland said. “I do want the Russian leadership to understand that we’re going to keep going. There is a tremendous willingness among the world’s democracies to just continue ratcheting up the pressure.”
Government promises to address tariff fallout
At a separate announcement on support for small businesses, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the government is prepared to help any companies that experience disruption as a result of Canada’s aggressive economic actions against Russia.
While Canadian companies have relatively little exposure to the Russian economy — two-way trade plummeted after Putin’s seizure of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 — there could be some fallout for some importers now faced with a maze of red tape and eye-popping sanctions on the goods they bring in from the region.
With oil out of the picture, Canada’s largest import from Russia is platinum.
WATCH: Trudeau says Canada’s response to Ukrainian refugees is built off the Syrian refugee crisis
The growing humanitarian crisis at Poland-Ukraine border
16 hours ago
Duration 2:16
A train station near the Poland-Ukraine border is the site of a growing humanitarian crisis as many Ukrainians arrive without money and an uncertain future ahead, something Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly witnessed first-hand. 2:16
In 2019, Canada’s largest exports to Russia were planes, helicopters and spacecraft, radioactive chemicals and animal feed. The recently announced ban on export permits could make it difficult for those goods to ever make it to their intended Russian recipients. Putin may also retaliate against countries that have levied sanctions on him and his country.
“Our approach on this has been to go as hard and as fast, as quickly as we could, in coordination with our allies around the world,” Trudeau said.
“Obviously, this may last some time and as we move forward in this situation we will take a look at how we can minimize the impacts on Canadians. But our priority right now is sending the strongest signal of condemnation and penalties to Putin and Russia that we possibly can.”
Canada deploys more lethal military aid
To help Ukrainians in the fight against Russian forces, Defence Minister Anita Anand announced Canada will provide more lethal aid to the country.
Anand said Canada is sending 4,500 M72 rocket launchers and 7,500 hand grenades drawn from existing Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) stockpiles. She said these supplies will be deployed “as quickly and as safely as possible.”
This shipment builds on a previous commitment to send Ukraine up to $10 million worth of lethal and non-lethal aid, including sniper rifles, carbines, pistols, body armour and 1.5 million rounds of ammunition.
Canada is also granting Ukraine some $1 million to purchase “high-resolution satellite imagery,” which will give Ukrainian forces the ability to monitor the movement of Russian forces as they continue their incursion.
“We are going to keep adding to the measures to support Ukraine sovereignty, security and territorial integrity. The brutality of what we’re seeing on our screens is angering everyone,” Anand said.
“A more violent conflict is not what Ukraine, Canada and the rest of the world wants or needs. We want peace.”
In this Sept. 13, 2021 file photo, military vehicles and tanks of Poland, Italy, Canada and United States roll during the NATO military exercises ”Namejs 2021” at a training ground in Kadaga, Latvia. NATO responded to Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula by beefing up alliance forces and conducting drills on the territories of its easternmost members. (Roman Koksarov/AP Photo)
The CAF also has roughly 3,400 military personnel on “high readiness alert” for a possible deployment to the region to offer more protection to NATO countries that border Russia. Anand said NATO’s supreme allied commander in Europe will decide if those Canadian troops will be dropped into a country like Latvia in the coming weeks.
Canada already has troops on the ground as part of Operation Reassurance, which has placed CAF personnel in central and eastern Europe to carry out assurance and deterrence measures.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A linebacker at Division II West Virginia State was fatally shot during what the university said Thursday is being investigated by police as a home invasion.
The body of Jyilek Zyiare Harrington, 21, of Charlotte, North Carolina, was found inside an apartment Wednesday night in Charleston, police Lt. Tony Hazelett said in a statement.
Hazelett said several gunshots were fired during a disturbance in a hallway and inside the apartment. The statement said Harrington had multiple gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene. Police said they had no information on a possible suspect.
West Virginia State said counselors were available to students and faculty on campus.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with Jyilek’s family as they mourn the loss of this incredible young man,” West Virginia State President Ericke S. Cage said in a letter to students and faculty.
Harrington, a senior, had eight total tackles, including a sack, in a 27-24 win at Barton College last week.
“Jyilek truly embodied what it means to be a student-athlete and was a leader not only on campus but in the community,” West Virginia State Vice President of Intercollegiate Athletics Nate Burton said. “Jyilek was a young man that, during Christmas, would create a GoFundMe to help less fortunate families.”
Burton said donations to a fund established by the athletic department in Harrington’s memory will be distributed to an organization in Charlotte to continue his charity work.
West Virginia State’s home opener against Carson-Newman, originally scheduled for Thursday night, has been rescheduled to Friday, and a private vigil involving both teams was set for Thursday night. Harrington previously attended Carson-Newman, where he made seven tackles in six games last season. He began his college career at Division II Erskine College.
“Carson-Newman joins West Virginia State in mourning the untimely passing of former student-athlete Jyilek Harrington,” Carson-Newman Vice President of Athletics Matt Pope said in a statement. “The Harrington family and the Yellow Jackets’ campus community is in our prayers. News like this is sad to hear anytime, but today it feels worse with two teams who knew him coming together to play.”
DETROIT (AP) — Joe Schmidt, the Hall of Fame linebacker who helped the Detroit Lions win NFL championships in 1953 and 1957 and later coached the team, has died. He was 92.
The Lions said family informed the team Schmidt died Wednesday. A cause of death was not provided.
One of pro football’s first great middle linebackers, Schmidt played his entire NFL career with the Lions from 1953-65. An eight-time All-Pro, he was enshrined into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1973 and the college football version in 2000.
“Joe likes to say that at one point in his career, he was 6-3, but he had tackled so many fullbacks that it drove his neck into his shoulders and now he is 6-foot,” said the late Lions owner William Clay Ford, Schmidt’s presenter at his Hall of Fame induction in 1973. “At any rate, he was listed at 6-feet and as I say was marginal for that position. There are, however, qualities that certainly scouts or anybody who is drafting a ballplayer cannot measure.”
Born in Pittsburgh, Schmidt played college football in his hometown at Pitt, beginning his stint there as a fullback and guard before coach Len Casanova switched him to linebacker.
“Pitt provided me with the opportunity to do what I’ve wanted to do, and further myself through my athletic abilities,” Schmidt said. “Everything I have stemmed from that opportunity.”
Schmidt dealt with injuries throughout his college career and was drafted by the Lions in the seventh round in 1953. As defenses evolved in that era, Schmidt’s speed, savvy and tackling ability made him a valuable part of some of the franchise’s greatest teams.
Schmidt was elected to the Pro Bowl 10 straight years from 1955-64, and after his arrival, the Lions won the last two of their three NFL titles in the 1950s.
In a 1957 playoff game at San Francisco, the Lions trailed 27-7 in the third quarter before rallying to win 31-27. That was the NFL’s largest comeback in postseason history until Buffalo rallied from a 32-point deficit to beat Houston in 1993.
“We just decided to go after them, blitz them almost every down,” Schmidt recalled. “We had nothing to lose. When you’re up against it, you let both barrels fly.”
Schmidt became an assistant coach after wrapping up his career as a player. He was Detroit’s head coach from 1967-72, going 43-35-7.
Schmidt was part of the NFL’s All-Time Team revealed in 2019 to celebrate the league’s centennial season. Of course, he’d gone into the Hall of Fame 46 years earlier.
Not bad for an undersized seventh-round draft pick.
“It was a dream of mine to play football,” Schmidt told the Detroit Free Press in 2017. “I had so many people tell me that I was too small. That I couldn’t play. I had so many negative people say negative things about me … that it makes you feel good inside. I said, ‘OK, I’ll prove it to you.’”
VICTORIA – British Columbia‘s Environment Assessment Office has fined Coastal GasLink Pipeline Ltd. $590,000 for “deficiencies” in the construction of its pipeline crossing the province.
The office says in a statement that 10 administrative penalties have been levied against the company for non-compliance with requirements of its environmental assessment certificate.
It says the fines come after problems with erosion and sediment control measures were identified by enforcement officers along the pipeline route across northern B.C. in April and May 2023.
The office says that the latest financial penalties reflect its escalation of enforcement due to repeated non-compliance of its requirements.
Four previous penalties have been issued for failing to control erosion and sediment valued at almost $800,000, while a fifth fine of $6,000 was handed out for providing false or misleading information.
The office says it prioritized its inspections along the 670-kilometre route by air and ground as a result of the continued concerns, leading to 59 warnings and 13 stop-work orders along the pipeline that has now been completed.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
