Time for Canada to Introduce Visa-Free Travel for Ukrainians

Nick Krawetz for Ukrainian Winnipeg

In 1891, a cen­tury before Canada was among the first coun­tries to rec­og­nize Ukraine’s inde­pen­dence, Ukrain­ian immi­grants began arriv­ing in Canada. Despite fac­ing ini­tial hard­ships, Ukraini­ans in Canada endured and pros­pered through will and deter­mi­na­tion. Most notably, 125 years of sub­se­quent waves of immi­gra­tion has resulted in immea­sur­able con­tri­bu­tions of Ukrainian-Canadians in the devel­op­ment of Canada, while Ukrain­ian cul­ture has been woven into the fab­ric of Cana­dian society.

As Pres­i­dent Petro Poroshenko stated in his address to the Cana­dian par­lia­ment in Sep­tem­ber 2014, “Mr. Prime Min­is­ter, I remem­ber you men­tioned that Canada is prob­a­bly the most Ukrain­ian nation out­side of Ukraine itself. You know what? This is absolutely true. Let me rec­i­p­ro­cate. There are great Euro­pean nations that stood as the source of the foun­da­tion of mod­ern Canada. Canada has friends all over the globe, and the clos­est one is next to it. How­ever, I doubt that you will find another nation that would say so sin­cerely what I say to you: Ukraine is prob­a­bly the most Cana­dian nation after Canada itself.”

Prime Minister Stephen Harper announces the upcoming visit of Petro Poroshenko, President of Ukraine, during the United for Ukraine Gala (Photo from http://pm.gc.ca/)

While address­ing par­lia­men­tar­i­ans and Cana­di­ans alike, Poroshenko also noted Ukrain­ian free­dom, democ­racy, and its Euro­pean future are pos­si­ble and reach­able. That is why mil­lions of Ukraini­ans have demanded reform, defended democ­racy, defended free­dom, and are seek­ing a mem­ber­ship per­spec­tive in the Euro­pean Union (EU).

And that is why his­tory is not the only thing that binds Ukraine and Canada. The Rev­o­lu­tion of Dig­nity, annex­a­tion of Crimea, and Russian-fueled war in the Don­bas all speak to the yearn­ing of Ukrain­ian cit­i­zens to live in a coun­try guided by demo­c­ra­tic norms, the rule of law, and market-based eco­nomic prin­ci­ples – the same norms and prin­ci­ples that Canada lives by and strives to advance around the world.

In light of the recent sign­ing of the Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agree­ment (CUFTA), the Canada-Ukraine bilat­eral rela­tion­ship is poten­tially now set to gen­er­ate sig­nif­i­cant com­mer­cial ben­e­fits for both Cana­dian and Ukrain­ian busi­nesses. CUFTA also aims to sup­port the Gov­ern­ment of Ukraine’s eco­nomic reform and devel­op­ment efforts, strengthen the Canada-Ukraine part­ner­ship for peace and pros­per­ity, and help pave the way for long-term secu­rity, sta­bil­ity, and broad-based eco­nomic devel­op­ment in Ukraine.

In order to facil­i­tate eco­nomic growth and CUFTA’s poten­tial, Canada should abol­ish tem­po­rary res­i­dent visa require­ments for Ukrain­ian cit­i­zens. Back in 2005, Ukraine took this uni­lat­eral step for Cana­di­ans when Pres­i­dent Vik­tor Yushchenko signed Decree No. 1134/2005 “On the Intro­duc­tion of a Visa-Free Regime for Cana­dian Cit­i­zens,” which allows Cana­di­ans to enter Ukraine or tran­sit through its ter­ri­tory with­out a visa for a period of up to 90 days. Visas are still required for Cana­di­ans who enter Ukraine for the pur­pose of employ­ment, per­ma­nent res­i­dency, study, work or for any other pur­pose if they are going to stay in Ukraine for more than 90 days.

In 2005, Ukraine also abol­ished visas for nation­als of the EU as a good­will ges­ture and a sign of open­ness and desire for EU inte­gra­tion. More­over, last year Ukraine ini­tialed its Asso­ci­a­tion Agree­ment with the EU, which includes a Deep and Com­pre­hen­sive Free Trade Agree­ment that is expected to be fully imple­mented start­ing on Jan­u­ary 1, 2016.

The Euro­peans have acknowl­edged the value of a visa-free regime as it granted Ukraine an Action Plan on Visa Lib­er­al­iza­tion at the Ukraine-EU Sum­mit in Novem­ber 2010. This Action Plan tran­si­tioned abstract pre­lim­i­nary dis­cus­sions to sub­stan­tive work with clear prospects of intro­duc­ing a visa-free regime for Ukrain­ian cit­i­zens for short-term travel to the EU.

The Action Plan is cur­rently being imple­mented using a phased-approach and it is com­prised of var­i­ous components:

1) doc­u­ment secu­rity, includ­ing biometrics;

2) ille­gal immi­gra­tion, includ­ing readmission;

3) pub­lic order and secu­rity; and

4) exter­nal rela­tions and fun­da­men­tal rights.

In Decem­ber 2015, the EU is expected to pub­lish a report on Ukraine’s progress in the imple­men­ta­tion of the Visa Lib­er­al­iza­tion Action Plan. Many EU lead­ers, includ­ing Euro­pean Com­mis­sion pres­i­dent Jean-Claude Juncker, pres­i­dent of the Euro­pean Coun­cil Don­ald Tusk, Euro­pean Par­lia­ment pres­i­dent Mar­tin Schulz, and EU Com­mis­sioner for Euro­pean Neigh­bour­hood and Enlarge­ment Johannes Hahn, have expressed sup­port for grant­ing a visa-free regime to Ukraine in 2016 if Ukraine achieves the bench­marks laid out in the Action Plan.

Ukraine is cur­rently work­ing on meet­ing the EU’s rec­om­men­da­tions, but more work still needs to be done. How­ever, Ukraine recently intro­duced bio­met­ric pass­ports, which include advanced secu­rity fea­tures that meet (and in some cases even exceed) Euro­pean and inter­na­tional stan­dards in terms of secu­rity and biometrics.

Cana­di­ans and their elected offi­cials have repeat­edly encour­aged greater ties with Ukraine, and the Gov­ern­ment of Canada has acted. It is essen­tial that our com­mu­nity renew its efforts to raise aware­ness of this issue and approach our elected offi­cials to make visa-free travel (up to 90 days) for Ukraini­ans a priority.

Undoubt­edly, cur­rent Cana­dian tem­po­rary res­i­dent visa require­ments ham­per Ukrain­ian busi­nesses from invest­ing in Canada. These restric­tions also obstruct knowl­edge trans­fer and pro­fes­sional exchanges, which ulti­mately under­mines the goals of CUFTA. If Canada rec­i­p­ro­cates by abol­ish­ing these restric­tions, Canada should also open addi­tional con­sular offices in other Ukrain­ian cities (e.g., Kharkiv, Dnipropetro­vsk, Odesa) and boost Cana­dian Embassy staff in order to deal with the demands and real­i­ties of Ukrain­ian travelers.

If the EU is will­ing to grant visa-free travel to Ukraini­ans, then so should Canada. Visa-free busi­ness and tourism travel is cen­tral to stim­u­lat­ing eco­nomic growth and job cre­ation on both sides of the Atlantic. 125 years of Ukrain­ian immi­gra­tion to Canada is tes­ta­ment to what Canada and Ukraine can achieve together in the years ahead.

#Україна