While in Germany on a trade mission last week, Premier Scott Moe met with refugees who’d fled their homes in Ukraine.
Now a delegation from Saskatchewan is heading back there to try to help.
Moe said he went to an office building that had been retrofitted to house refugees. He said he spoke to a woman who’d fled Kyiv, whom he called Nadia.
“Then one morning she was in her yard and there’s 22 helicopters that flew over her home just above the tree line — Russian war helicopters flying just a few metres up,” Moe said Monday.
He said Nadia told him that, a few days later, there was a Russian rocket fired at a nearby power station, and while the rocket was shot down, it wasn’t harmless.
“The shrapnel rained down on Nadia’s neighbourhood and it destroyed a neighbour’s house about two to three hundred metres away from her house. That’s when Nadia knew it was time for her to leave,” Moe said.
She gathered up her family and they made their way out of Ukraine to Kassel, Germany. But eventually, Moe said, Nadia wants to go back.
“My body is here but my heart, most certainly, is at home in Ukraine,” Moe quoted Nadia as saying.
Moe said he hopes Nadia and everyone else can go home soon, but Saskatchewan will be there to help them until they can.
That’s why a delegation from Saskatchewan is heading to Germany this week.
It will be headed by Terry Dennis, legislative secretary responsible for Saskatchewan-Ukraine relations, and will include Iryna Matsiuk, a member of the Saskatchewan Ukraine Relations Advisory Committee and co-chair of the Ukrainian Canada Congress’ Saskatchewan Ukraine Support Committee.
The delegation will also include immigration officials from Saskatchewan, including those with the Saskatchewan Immigrant Nominee Program.
“The delegation will be meeting with Ukrainian refugees and identifying opportunities to streamline the immigration process whether it be, for months or forever,” said Moe.
When he was in Germany, Moe said he talked with Canada’s immigration minister about the mission and to make sure the Canadian government can use Saskatchewan’s officials to their fullest extent.
Saskatchewan has said it will take as many refugees from Ukraine as possible and is working with the Government of Canada to help in the immigration process.