Free flights for Ukrainians: only 500 tickets are available at short notice

That’s only a small part-one-twentieth-of the ultimate goal of an initiative announced in April by the Trudeau government, in partnership with Air Canada and charities like Miles4Migrants.

The project, launched by collecting cash donations and points, aims to provide free air travel to 10,000 people who fled Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

However, on its website, Miles4Migrants, an organization founded in the United States that manages logistics, specified that registration starting Friday at 5 pm, Eastern European time, is only valid for one. first round tickets offered on a first-come, first-served basis.

The first round of registration will open [pour] the first 500 tickets. If you are requesting to travel as a family, each person is counted as a separate ticket. This means that a family of four will count as 4 out of 500 ticketscan we read

Immigration Minister Sean Fraser was not worried about the speed of things when asked about it Thursday in the halls of parliament in Ottawa.

I believe the result will be successful, he is enthusiastic, showing no concern about reaching the final goal. He said his understanding is that Mile4Migrants starts with a chunk of 500 to make sure his new program runs smoothly. Miles4Migrants has never operated on such a large scale before. [Ce sont] fantastic organization and initiativehe said.

However, this was not what the organization in question maintained in an interview given to The Canadian Press in May. We recently partnered with the U.S. government to airlift more than 20,000 Afghans […] and so we have experience in this dimensionsaid one of its co-founders, Andy Freedman.

At the time, the organization admitted facing a very little delay to launch its program to allow Ukrainians who want to benefit from subsidized flights to register. Initially, Mile4Migrants expected the first departures by plane to Canada as soon as May.

Canada-Ukraine Emergency Travel Authorization is required

Now that registration will begin on Friday, the organization reminded that only Ukrainian nationals who already have a residence permit in Canada, such as under the Canada-Ukraine Emergency Travel Authorization (AVUCU), are eligible.

Miles4Migrants identifies on its web page that another organization, the coordinating charity partner MOSAIC will verify the validity of each registration.

On June 17, MOSAIC will contact you to confirm any information as part of the eligibility review., we write to the attention of major interested parties. According to the latest data released by the federal government, 127,153 AVUCU applications were approved.

The program provides temporary three -year residence in Canada to Ukrainians and their family members.

Canadians were asked on April 20 to donate Aeroplan points and cash to fund flights.

According to an Air Canada web page, the collection raised 147 million points. The airline itself donated 100 million points.

No additional charter flights announced

Along with its partnership with Miles4Migrants, Ottawa has brought in approximately 900 Ukrainians via three charter flights.

The Trudeau government has not announced if the others will be next or when. Asked to provide clarification on Thursday, Minister Fraser did not close the door on more federal charter flights, but praised the flexibility of commercial flights for Ukrainians who find themselves in different parts of Europe, as in Poland and in Germany.

What we see now, from our federal perspective, is that it has helped fix charter flights. [Mais] it’s really more effective if you can push opportunities [de vols] business, especially through the Miles4Migrants initiativehe replied.

Opposition prefers from Ottawa

Bloc Québécois is calling for additional charter flights.

At this time, I think the government has failed in its desire to help Ukrainians set foot in Canadaruled Bloc immigration spokesman, Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe.

The New Democratic Party (NDP) has also indicated in the past that chartered flights are not enough in its view.

We should do more to support countries like Poland that help millions of UkrainiansDeputy Chief Alexandre Boulerice commented in writing on Thursday.

For its part, Miles4Migrants mentioned that on its website additional tickets will be made available at a later date.

According to the Conservatives, the government should certainly not have turned down such a partnership which, according to them, is too late.

While it is impressive that so many Canadians have grown up and donated to this program, the government should have taken the lead early in the fight and not rely on a private program after the fact.said their immigration spokesman, Jasraj Singh Hallan, in an email.

Mr. Boulerice also defended that the federal government should have launched its own program, although he pointed out that the NDP welcomes the Miles4Migrants initiative. -standing request rejected by liberals.