Consider what occurred then — and now — in Poland. Immediately after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Poland opened its arms, and its homes, to Ukrainians, and the country has rightfully received praise from around the world for its actions.
Those stories were particularly disquieting given that many of the non-Ukrainians were refugees even before they entered Ukraine, and were being forced to flee yet another country. Twice refugees, you might say.Advocates like to say “a refugee is a refugee,” meaning all refugees ought to be treated similarly regardless of where they are from. But most countries don’t like to hear that. And sadly, not all of those tone deaf countries are in Europe.
However, when you look a little more closely, you see that even in Canada, not all refugees are created equally. And where they have been matters more than where they are. Furthermore, since Ukrainians are considered temporary visitors under the program, they are exempt from proving they qualify as Convention refugees. That eliminates one major time-consuming administrative step in the process, and means their applications won’t be added to the pile of 150,000 backlogged refugee claims.