Alberta government announces new hotline, pre-arrival information for Ukrainian evacuees
CBC
The Alberta government is creating a hotline for Ukrainian evacuees looking for help with provincial services when arriving in the province.
The help desk should be running by mid-April, according to the government, and will employ Ukrainian and Russian speakers who can help the newcomers with tasks such as applying for health insurance, or completing applications.
"Many evacuees do not have any family or friends here to help them navigate information systems, and especially in a new language," Trade, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Rajan Sawhney said at a news conference in Mundare on Tuesday.
The step is one of several new measures suggested by a premier's task force on Ukraine that will cost about $2.1 million this year, Premier Danielle Smith and Sawhney said.
About $1 million of that will be dedicated to providing information to Ukrainians before they arrive in the province.
The funding is separate from about $7 million that has been earmarked over three years to help settlement agencies dealing with an influx of newcomers to Alberta.
More than 26,500 people who fled the war in Ukraine have arrived in Alberta as temporary residents since the invasion began in February 2022.
Orysia Boychuk, president of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress — Alberta Provincial Council, says the federal government has given approval to hundreds of thousands more Ukrainians to seek safety in Canada. With about a quarter of the evacuees choosing Alberta so far, the province could see another 100,000 people arrive, should the war continue, she said.
Although volunteers generously donated money, supplies, and time and opened their homes to newcomers, many volunteers are getting burned out, she said, while the need persists.
Boychuk hopes once the legislature approves the provincial budget, there will be more grants forthcoming for agencies and programs to help the thousands of people arriving with almost nothing.
A stable and affordable place to live is their most immediate need, as is employment. Federal cash to help evacuees get settled will last just a few weeks, she said.
The congress has applied for provincial funding to establish a flexible language training program that would allow newcomers to take some classes remotely and meet in small groups.
For evacuees arriving without fluent English, they can be stuck months waiting to get into a free or affordable English class, Boychuk said.
"They don't have that time to wait," she said, as they need to make a living.
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