Iuliia Slabinska sent her son to study in Canada in 2021, months before Russia launched a war against their homeland, Ukraine. He was just turning 16.
In August 2022 — six months after the Russian invasion — she, her husband and younger daughter arrived in Langley, B.C., under the Canada-Ukraine Authorization for Emergency Travel program. The CUAET program offered temporary refuge to almost 300,000 displaced Ukrainians with work and study permits, before it shut down last March.
