A child draped in Ukrainian flags stood amid a rally on Parliament Hill last Sunday, marking three years since Russia’s invasion upended millions of lives. For nearly 300,000 Ukrainians who sought refuge in Canada under the Canada-Ukraine Authorization for Emergency Travel (CUAET) program, that upheaval now collides with a looming deadline: more than 100,000 hold temporary visas set to expire in 2025. As bureaucratic snarls and processing delays mount, advocates like the Canada-Ukraine Foundation are pressing Ottawa for an automatic three-year extension to ease the strain.
“It’s a daily battle with uncertainty,” said Iuliia Slabinska, who fled Ukraine with her family after the war erupted in February 2022. “I’ve got kids to care for, a life to manage, and this immigration mess just piles on the stress.” She’s one of many CUAET holders now tasked with applying online for a three-year extension—a process that sounds straightforward but is mired in backlogs and red tape, including the challenge of renewing expired Ukrainian passports.
Valeriy Kostyuk, executive director of the Canada-Ukraine Foundation, hears the same fears from displaced Ukrainians across the country. “They’re stuck in limbo,” he told CTVNews.ca. “The simplest fix—if the government has the guts—is to auto-renew these work permits, sparing people the ordeal of reapplying.”
Launched weeks after Russia’s assault, CUAET offered three-year visas to live and work in Canada, drawing over a million applicants and welcoming nearly 300,000. With expirations approaching, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress and Kostyuk’s group recently appealed to Immigration Minister Marc Miller for blanket extensions. While no formal response has come, Ottawa announced Thursday a one-year reprieve, pushing the renewal deadline to March 31, 2026, for work and study permits.
“It’s a lifeline for Ukrainians here to support themselves and their families,” said Ihor Michalchyshyn, CEO of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, in an email to CTVNews.ca. Kostyuk called it “a step forward” but stressed it falls short of the community’s call for automatic renewals. “The minister says no one’s getting deported,” he noted, “but expiring work permits mean lost jobs—or illegal work.”
Adding to the chaos, Canada’s immigration department is slashing 3,300 jobs and cutting new permanent resident slots by at least 20 percent, raising fears of even slower processing.
Slabinska, now settled in Langley, B.C., arrived six months into the war with her husband and two teens, fleeing Russian bombs with little more than essentials. “I grabbed my daughter and a cap and ran,” she recalled. They’ve juggled multiple jobs to survive, but their visas expire this year. Her 19-year-old son, a student in Canada pre-war, faced a passport renewal saga—months of online dead ends and a costly trip to Edmonton’s Ukrainian consulate—that finally succeeded in February.
“It’s draining—money, energy, everything,” Slabinska said. “That passport hurdle was the worst.” Now, she’s applying for a three-year extension and permanent residency, leveraging her Canadian-citizen mother. But a year after filing, she’s still waiting for a nod from immigration officials, who’ve processed just 367 of roughly 23,000 family reunification cases, citing overwhelming demand.
“I just want stability—to work and contribute,” she said. “We’re hard workers, good neighbors.” Without swift approvals, she dreads a gap where her family can’t legally earn a living.
Thursday’s news release from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada clarified that temporary residents can work and study while extensions are pending, even with outdated passports. “Canada stands by Ukraine amid this war,” Miller said, framing the extension as a bridge to safety—and an eventual return home when peace holds.
Yet the Embassy of Ukraine in Canada highlighted a consular crunch, with passport renewal slots booked solid for six months. “Demand is off the charts,” an official told CTVNews.ca, urging urgent cases to reach out directly as they bolster resources.
For Slabinska, every delay stokes anxiety. “Will I get the work permit? When? For how long?” she wondered aloud. “Once I have it, I’ll finally catch my breath.”