Name: Ukrainians in Canada face decades-long backlog for permanent residency
Uploaded: 2026-01-14T14:31:44.803Z
Duration: 1 min 58 s
Description: With Canada tightening up on immigration, Ukrainians who fled war say the path to permanent residency seems impassable and has some pushing to have Ukrainians put on a fast track, but the government says there are more applications than there are spots.

With Canada tightening up on immigration, Ukrainians who fled war say the path to permanent residency seems impassable and has some pushing to have Ukrainians put on a fast track, but the government says there are more applications than there are spots.

Thousands of Ukrainians who arrived in Canada through temporary programs since the Russian invasion are facing significant delays in obtaining permanent residency. Some applicants, like Oleh Zadoretsky, have been told their wait could exceed forty years due to a backlog and unchanged intake limits.

The Canadian government has tightened immigration targets, leading to a bottleneck in processing applications. While some advocate for fast-tracking Ukrainians because of the ongoing war, officials note that the number of applications from Ukrainians currently exceeds the available spots for the next three years.

Ukrainians in Canada face decades-long backlog for permanent residency

Overnight in Ukraine, emergency crews searching for survivors after what officials called the most intense attack in nearly two weeks by Russian forces, killing at least four people, wounding six more. Maybe the federal government of Canada is hoping that the war in Ukraine is going to end and we're all going to go back or something like that, but I do not personally believe in it. Thousands of Ukrainians have come to Canada through temporary programs since Russia invaded nearly four years ago, including Oleh Zadoretsky and his family. But for him, a path to permanent residency seems out of sight with a wait time that could exceed four decades. I would be 95 by then and even if I make it until 95 by some chance, well that immigration status, that age probably doesn't matter that much anymore. Ukrainians are not alone. Last year, the federal government began substantially tightening immigration targets. What they've done is they have allowed the people to submit applications. They haven't changed the intake. So that means that the same number of people can be applying, but there's a huge bottleneck on what's actually going to get processed. But as the war rages on, some suggest Ukrainians should be fast-tracked through the application process. Our hope is that that will help alleviate some of the pressure and certainly the long wait times that you're talking about that are a part of the system right now. The government says those long wait times can fluctuate based on the overall number of applications in the system, but it also notes there are currently more applications from Ukrainians than the total number of spots available over the course of the next three years. Rafi Boudjikani, ONCBC News, Montreal.

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