Moosomin Chamber of Commerce addresses plan to host Ukrainian refugees

At the Moosomin Chamber of Commerce meeting on Tuesday, Moosomin MLA Steven Bonk informed chamber members and citizens from the community about how the Government of Saskatchewan will be supporting refugees of Ukraine.

“The province of Saskatchewan, just like everyone else here, strongly condemns the Russian unprovoked attack on the citizens of Ukraine. It’s just something I thought I’d never see in my life time,” said Bonk.

He said he spent about 20 years of his life living in Ukraine and the citizens in the country are very similar to the citizens of Canada.

“These are people that share the same ideals as us and it’s heartbreaking what’s happening there right now.”

“One thing I can say is that the Government of Saskatchewan, we’re trying our hardest to step up with what’s needed. Right away as soon as this invasion occurred, we gave $100,000 to help the humanitarian effort.”

“We partnered with the Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC) of Saskatchewan and they started a Saskatchewan-Ukrainian relations committee called SURAC, because this is on a scale we’ve never seen before in Saskatchewan. We’ve offered them administrative support for their organization because they didn’t have the infrastructure to deal with what we didn’t see coming,” Bonk said at Tuesday’s meeting.

“They have access to the full government resources as far as administration and making sure we can get things organized in a timely manner. A few other things that we’re doing, simple things that may not seem like much, but waiving fees for long distance messages and phone calls through SaskTel so there’s no problem for anyone to communicate with loved ones or family.”

“One thing we’re going to do is with the Saskatchewan Immigrant Nominee Program which is for people who want to come here as residents and not just as temporary foreign workers, but for someone who wants to move here. We’ve made it for anyone who is from Ukraine has priority, there’s no extra vetting. If you’re from the Ukraine right now, you have priority access to immigrating to Saskatchewan.”

“We’ve been working with the federal government and told them that we would take an unlimited amount of refugees. If they’re able to come to Canada and they want to come to Saskatchewan, we will take them. We’ll help them with all the resources.”

“We also have a lot of foreign students here in Saskatchewan and they really don’t know what’s happening, they’re in a really tough situation at the moment. We’re working with them towards organizing programs so that they’re not worried. For example, if their funding has been cut off, they can’t pay for expenses, we’re working with them in trying to figure out how to make their life a little bit calmer and easier, at this difficult time.”

“The Ukrainians will be flying indefinitely at the legislative just to show our support for the people in Ukraine. What I mentioned before about the UCC, we’re giving them $335,000 to help them co-ordinate their settlement efforts. What we’re going to be doing in Saskatchewan is I believe six locations throughout Saskatchewan, will be co-ordinating resettlement efforts and that’s going to be done through the Ukrainian Canadian Congress group.”

“The Government of Saskatchewan itself does not have any settlement services, we do that all through CSOs (Community Settlement Organization). We’re working with this Ukrainian Canadian Congress and the president of the group, I’ve known him, I’ve been on trade missions with him, he brought in delegations from the Ukraine into Saskatchewan, and he’s the kind of person that you can rely on and give our support to in a situation like this.”

“A few other things we’ve done, we’ve quit selling Russian products in Saskatchewan liquor stores or any Crown corporation that we have, just as a show of support for the people in Ukraine.”

“Another thing I would like to mention is that anyone who wants to sponsor someone, I’ve been getting a lot of calls about that. Anyone who would like to sponsor a family to come to Saskatchewan that will be done through these settlement offices, it won’t be done through the Government of Saskatchewan, you’d have to contact the Ukrainian Congress because they’re the ones who will be organizing that.”

“Roman also mentioned earlier that we are expecting a lot of women and children to come first. I want everyone to keep in mind that it will be a priority that if the men from those families want to come to Canada, it will be a very easy process for them. They will not be held up with any extra vetting or anything like that.”

“Once again, I’d like to offer my support to the people in Ukraine. Thank you so much for what you’re doing. Thank you to the community of Moosomin for opening up your community and welcoming these refugees with open arms. This is a really tough time in history and I just wanted to let you know that the government is behind you.”

Local Ukrainian families plan for hosting refugees in Moosomin

Roman Chernykh and Josef Tesar told chamber members on Tuesday about how they plan on welcoming Ukrainian refugees to Moosomin. 

The local Ukrainian community is willing do what it takes to make the refugees feel welcome and ensure they have what they need. 

“These last couple of weeks has changed lives, for many people in Canada, for my people in Ukraine,” said Chernykh.

“I would like to say that freedom is not something that is given to us, it’s something that no one can take from us. People in the Ukraine have proved that, they’ve shown us that freedom is really important and it’s something that nobody can take from us.”

Immediately after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Chernykh started collecting donations from the community, in order to help support family and people he knows in Ukraine.

“The support that we’ve had from this community is unbelievable, we were able to raise $22,000 and we sent 500 kilograms of donation items to humanitarian groups. It just shows that when something happens, this community can get together in a moment.”

“It’s unbelievable where we are in Ukraine right now, it’s a shocking experience and I would like to say thank you very much to everyone in this community. For all the businesses that support our centre, on behalf of all the Ukrainian people that my group represents, it’s really great, thank you.”

Chernykh and Tesar believe there are a lot of advantages for hosting refugees in Moosomin—lots of jobs available, there is an established Ukrainian community, and there are English as an Additional Language classes available through Southeast College, which is something most rural communities do not have. 

“Through these difficult times right now, all we can do is raise money and send help towards these humanitarian groups at this time,” said Chernykh.

“Another thing we can do right now, which we will be experiencing soon, is refugees. So far there are 2.8 million people who left their homes, women and kids. Their lives changed in a moment, they lost everything.”

“We expect to see in the upcoming months more and more Ukrainian’s coming this way. Premier Moe said unlimited number of refugees are going to be welcomed here in Canada. In one way we can be of great help and bring the people here to Moosomin and that’s a great help to them.”

“At the same time it’s really good for a smaller community and I would like to emphasize from my experience when I came to Canada in 2009 and the greatest experience was to settle down in a smaller community.”

“Although there’s lots of help in bigger cities as well, there’s a benefit to smaller communities. The friendliness like ours, can definitely help the people coming here.”

Similar to Chernykh, Tesar said he believes from his experience that a small community is the best place for an immigrant to Canada to start out. 

Tesar came to Canada as a refugee from Czechoslovakia during the Cold War and now owns the Motel 6 in Moosomin and other properties across Canada. He said part of his success comes from the fact that he settled in a relatively small community.

“I know personally what’s happening to these people overseas because in 1968 people were coming from Czech Republic and again in 1980, they were going with kids and families, no husbands at the time.”

Tesar spoke about investing money to renovate some of his hotel rooms at Motel 6 to accommodate refugee families for their initial stay.

“Right now we have 16 rooms with kitchenettes, but we would like to improve those so that those rooms can end up with three beds and a full kitchen for a family or two or four,” he said.

“Thank you for coming, I’m glad to see the support for the Ukrainian community here, I think it’s a great add to every community.”

Chernykh said the community should be expecting women and their children from Ukraine, as the men are expected to stay back due to the country’s martial law.

He also told MP. Dr Kitchen and MLA Steven Bonk that the community will do everything they can to assist Ukrainian refugees.

“As a Ukrainian representative of this community, we’re going to do everything possible with communicating with you and helping the refugees to settle down in communities. If anything is needed from our side 100 per cent we’ll help.”

Thrift Store donates to Ukrainian community

At Tuesday’s meeting, Moosomin’s Thrift Store donated $1,000 to the local Ukrainian community, in support of helping families a part of Ukrainian relief efforts.

“We felt it was important to show our support to the local Ukrainian Fundraising Centre,” said Lori Shepherd of Moosomin Thrift Store.

“As a non-profit organization our mandate is to support those in need in our community. This crisis in Ukraine affects us all as caring members of society. We felt it was important to give a donation that could be used for immediate help.”

“The local Food Share provides generous monthly and emergency food hampers. The Thrift Store not only supports this venture but provides employment for 1 full time and 2 part time employees. Along with great volunteers and a huge customer base it allows us to reach out and help others.”

MP Dr. Kitchen shares thoughts on Ukrainian refugees

Souris-Moose Mountain MP. Dr. Robert Kitchen attended Moosomin’s Chamber of Commerce meeting on Tuesday to say a few words.

“Obviously it’s a very emotional time, not for me more so for Ukrainians, not only here in Canada but also in Ukraine. We need to be here to help them and I know there are steps that I want to enforce and will continue to reinforce with my colleague Conservatives,” said Kitchen.

“One of the things we the Conservatives will continue to push for is Ukrainians who want to come to Canada need to have a visa, and we’ve been pushing hard for this government to make it a visa free process for Ukrainians to come to Canada. We will continue to push for that. Now, we’re not government so unfortunately I can’t speak be half on them, but we’ll continue to push for those aspects of things.”

“One of the things that is happening is if someone should come to Canada and they are offered a job here, they can start that job right off the bat and work on a work permit. At least that will give them and their families at this time some financial assistance.”

“In the issue of immigration, there’s obviously been a lot of challenges in this country over the last 30 years and because the process is very slow, we’re hoping that we can speed it up so we can get Ukrainians here, but at the same time recognizing that whether they’re from Afghanistan or Philippines or whatever, that we’re speeding that process up to get them into this country.”

“My colleagues and I will continue to push to try and work on issues that we believe are going to help Ukrainians and help the country. One of the concerns that’s been brought up is the ‘no fly zone’ and I can tell you that we will push to the international criminal courts of Putin so he gets tried under that and at some point we will continue to push on for this criminal act that he’s doing,” Kitchen said.

“On the issue of the ‘no fly zone’ we have indicated that we are trying to push our present government to find ways to try and at least provide some form of retention, even if it’s for refugees and people that are trying to flea the situation, to give them a safe zone.”

“I want to thank the community and you know, they talk about Saskatchewan, we were founded by the Ukrainians that came here one hundred years ago and participated in that foundation of what we have, with our First Nations who were here before. But they also helped develop the country and the province that we have.”

“We have a very strong Ukrainian population not only in Saskatchewan but in my riding here, and I’m very grateful for them coming years ago to help us develop to where we are today and them continuing to do that. We will continue to push along those lines ”

McNaughton prepared for refugee students 

McNaughton High School’s Principal Jeff St. Onge and Vice-Principal Sherrie Meredith attended Tuesday’s meeting to discuss how the school would handle an influx of refugee students.

“We’re very good at responding, whatever number of kids drop into the school we’ll be able to accommodate that,” said St. Onge.

“When we had that first influx of families eight years ago, our staff was scrambling and whatnot, but now the skill set in the building is wonderful. If the issue is there, it is something that we can respond to now.”

He also said the school is able to provide classrooms for teaching English as an additional language, for children an adults.“When we have had families from other countries come before, we’ve been able to make good accommodations. In the past what we’ve done, when we had an influx of Filipino families, we were able to have English as an additional language class just one hour a day until people got at climatized. There’s one at Southeast college that can be done as well,” said Meredith.

“We have a consultant from the division who also provides support, and technology has advanced so greatly to help with these language barriers that we find too.”

St. Onge also stated that the staff and students are flexible to accommodate the needs of Ukrainian refugees.