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People fleeing the war in Ukraine arrive in Krakow, Poland, on March 15.Omar Marques/Getty Images

Later this week, the federal government will announce new special measures that should ease the passage of Ukrainian exiles to Canada. It is high time. It is past time.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada “will be launching the new Canada-Ukraine Authorization for Emergency Travel this week,” the department said in a statement. “We will continue to monitor volumes of travellers and their needs closely and will take action as required.”

Relatively few displaced Ukrainians have come to Canada since Russian strongman Vladimir Putin’s armies invaded their country three weeks ago. While the Immigration department says more than 7,400 made the journey, that figure incudes all Ukrainians who have come to Canada since Jan. 1, before the war started.

Existing visa requirements are complex, and many applicants would not qualify under current rules.

When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declared that Canada would accept an unlimited number of displaced Ukrainians, Polish President Andrzej Duda thanked him, but added, “Please, Justin, try to introduce some very, very, very simple procedures … to move this process faster, to accelerate it.”

But simple isn’t the Canadian way. Mr. Trudeau’s government is unwilling to waive Ukrainian visa requirements, citing security concerns. Instead, the new special measures will make it easier to apply for a modified visitor’s visa that will allow new arrivals to stay and work or study in Canada for up to two years, with further extensions possible. But biometric requirements remain; security checks remain.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian Canadians struggle to figure out what they must do to get displaced Ukrainians over to Canada. One of those Canadians is Andrew Allsopp of NASHI, a Saskatoon non-profit that operates a group home for girls in Western Ukraine.

NASHI has brought 17 girls, from the ages of 6 to 17, out of Ukraine to Poland. They are extremely vulnerable; many are the victims of physical or sexual abuse. They have been living in a safe and protected space, as they overcome trauma and learn life skills. Now they face a new trauma of dislocation, and are vulnerable to human traffickers skulking among the Ukrainian exiles.

Mr. Allsopp told me he was feeling “very frustrated. I mean, we know this is something that doesn’t happen overnight.” But he doesn’t even know what forms he should be submitting on behalf of the girls. “What do we need to do to get an actual application?” he asked. “No one can tell us.”

Masha Levkovytska, who works at the Ukrainian Museum of Canada in Saskatoon, spoke of relatives who have been in Warsaw “for a week now just trying to fill out an application.” And the situation for others is worse. “There is no help for people who do not speak or read in English or have a connection in Canada,” she said. “It’s almost impossible for most Ukrainians to come to Canada.”

Such confusion is normal in the opening days of a humanitarian crisis.

“I totally understand the frustration with the delay in announcing the fully fleshed out measures,” said Jacqueline Bonisteel, an immigration lawyer who was speaking on behalf of the Canadian Immigration Lawyers Association. But she likes what she’s hearing about the new special measures. “What we’ve heard so far sounds very good, very expansive. But we need to know the details.”

The Ukrainian Canadian Congress is also anxious to hear just what the new rules will be. And its CEO, Ihor Michalchyshyn, warns that while an expedited online application process for displaced Ukrainians sounds wonderful, many displaced persons “may not have a computer or laptop, and they may not be able to speak English. So we have to be creative.” Canadian embassy and consular staff in Europe are about to show us what they’re made of.

Three million have fled Ukraine. The United Nations expects another million to leave. Most are women and children who hope to reunite with husbands and fathers and to return to a Ukraine at peace.

But we can’t know when peace will come, or what the country will look like when it does. We may need to welcome some of these new arrivals permanently. The federal government is already at work on a special family reunification program for Ukrainian exiles.

In the meantime, Canada needs to bring over as many as want to come, and to bring them over now.

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